The $24 trillion bailout

More from the No, It’s Still Not Working department:

The federal government has devoted $4.7 trillion to help the financial sector through its crisis, a level of assistance equal to about one-third of the overall U.S. economy, a watchdog report said Monday. Under the worst of circumstances, the report said, the government’s maximum exposure could total nearly $24 trillion, or $80,000 for every American.

I’d very much like to know how many of the nominal conservatives in the media who supported the bailouts would have done so if they’d known the price tag was going to be somewhere between $5 and 25 trillion. And it’s amusing to hear those defending the status quo protesting that the $24 trillion estimate is an unlikely, worst-case scenario.

When, one wonders, has a cost estimate of a government program EVER failed to hit the over?