Bush to Bailout Irresponsible Financial Institutions by Borrowing $700 Billion:

Question: Once the Bush administration buys out the incompetently run financial institutions with all of this borrowed money, will he turn around and sell it back to them at bargain basement prices? This has been the policy around the world during the Bush administration, and it's been the policy of the so called "free market" folks for most of the past half century. If you want to understand the mess that is Iraq, this is the principle you need to grasp.

In order to make the buyout, the government will need to increase the national debt to $11.3 trillion—that's "trillion," with a "t"—; remember Bush's promises at the beginning of his reign? When Clinton (another free marketer) left office, we were moving towards solvency as a nation. Yes, I know, 9/11 changed everything. It provided those who would destroy this nation with their best opportunity to do so.

By the way, while you and I and our children and our children's children will be paying off this debt, the CEOs who created this problem will be walking away with 100s of millions of dollars. Bush's solution: lower taxes for the super wealthy, of which he and his family are members.

In rationalizing the bailout, Bush said yesterday that "over time, we're going to get a lot of the money back." Who is the "we" he's talking about?

(See today's New York Times for a look at the bailout. See Steve McGourty's look at the national debt since the end of World War II.)