You can buy new bulbs for $1-$1.25. Anything more than that you just aren’t looking closely. Old bulbs were about 40 cents last time I was at Walmart. But even using your 20 cents at an average, at an average of 4.5 month per bulb (which would be generous in my house) would break even with a CFL in about 2 1/2 years. Average CFL will last 3-5 in most houses now. That also ignores the fact that you’ll save 75% on energy each and every month. I’ll save about $300-$350 this year on my electric bill due to CFLs (based on my last 4 months of use since I switched 2/3 of my bulbs (none of my CFLs have gone out, I had 4 incandecents die in that time out of my remaining 10).
My father bought one of the new compact lights more than 10 years ago. It's still working.
BTW, I have one of the original GE commercially viable fluorescent light fixtures (circa 1938/39) used by my grandfather. They still produce bulbs that fit in it.
No doubt Congress means well, but they are all a bunch of ignorant hillbillies ~ the best new thing coming along is the Light Emitting Diode lamp.
If Congress-critters actually cared they'd taken that $40 billion in earmarks for horsestalls and butterfly footpeddle park boats and dropped it on some happy camper for the purpose of actualizing an inexpensive LED spotlight!
I bought my 42 watt lamps here.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/42-Watt-Compact-Fluorescents/32170/
This is not a cheep lamp. The $1.25 lamps your are talking about are low performance lamps.