The cost of the Treasury plan to save the US financial system from collapse cannot be estimated because it is too vague, Peter Orszag, head of the Congressional Budget Office, told legislators on Wednesday.

At a hearing before the House budget committee, Mr Orszag said: ”The secretary would have the authority to purchase virtually any asset, at any price, and sell it at any future date; the lack of specificity regarding how that authority would be implemented makes it impossible at this point to provide a quantitative analysis of the net cost to the federal government.”