Trickle this

A couple of months ago, Jim Bianco of Bianco Research did a great job of shedding historical light on our government's addiction to taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts. Consider this hit parade of government spending:

• Marshall Plan: $12.7 billion ($115 billion in today's dollars)
• Louisiana Purchase: $15 million ($217 billion)
• Race to the Moon: $36.4 billion ($237 billion)
• S&L crisis: $153 billion ($256 billion)
• Korean War: $54 billion ($454 billion)
• The New Deal: $32 billion ($500 billion)
• Invasion of Iraq: $551 billion ($597 billion)
• Vietnam War: $111 billion ($698 billion)
• NASA: $416.7 billion ($851 billion)

The sum, in today's dollars, is $3.92 trillion -- and the cost of the current round of corporate bailouts (so far) is nearly $5 trillion. The only single federal expenditure that comes close is World War II, which originally cost $288 billion, or $3.6 trillion today.

That's actually the good news, because eventually the cost of these corporate bailouts is expected to exceed $7.5 trillion, perhaps going as high as $10 trillion.

Ten trillion dollars. Let's be clear about what that means:

The bailout of mismanaged and failed corporations will cost the American taxpayer more than the combined tab for the Louisiana Purchase, The New Deal, the Marshall Plan, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the savings-and-loan crisis and the entire historical budget of NASA.

The misbegotten TARP and its bastard cousins represent both the highest expression and the ultimate indictment of "trickle-down economics" -- I mean, who's feeling a trickle these days? Investors? Small businesses? How about homeowners? Workers? Taxpayers?

Advertised as desperately needed hi-test for an economy that's running on empty, corporate bailouts have become the prankster's sugar in our national tank. Consumers and small businesses -- citizens, taxpayers -- are the engine that drives our economy, and that engine has been fouled, willfully and without our consent.

The injury inflicted by siphoning trillions out of our wallets is compounded by the insult of returning no account and no benefit -- none -- to the citizen-taxpayers who write the checks.

I'm not naive about the macro-dynamics of our economy, nor do I advocate true socialism, but the status quo is horrifyingly upside-down and backwards. Yes, citizenship carries the obligation to pay for the rewards we reap. We also have every right to demand the benefits we pay for, along with real accountability.