WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE SURPLUS? (via Patrick H):

Alive on Arrival (Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2007)
Earlier this year, President Bush proposed to restructure the $250 billion of annual federal tax subsidies for employer-sponsored health insurance by treating it as taxable income and then capping the tax deduction at $15,000 a year per family. The savings would be used to provide new tax incentives for uninsured low-income workers to purchase private insurance. Democrats declared the plan dead on arrival and have refused even to hold hearings on it.

But the [Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation], which "scores" tax policy changes, has breathed new life into the Bush plan by estimating that it would actually save the federal government $333 billion over the next 10 years. (Its first estimate was $526 billion.) This means that the Bush proposal would not only reduce the inequitable tax treatment of health care and the number of uninsured, but it would do so while saving the government lots of money.

The revenue windfall the JCT is predicting would be so large over time that there would be enough money left over to underwrite a $5,000 health-care insurance voucher to millions of the nation's uninsured -- without increasing the budget deficit.
Talk about your virtuous cycles....