The federal bailout: Porky's revenge

AN ancient joke used to define ambivalence as how you feel when your mother-in-law drives off a cliff in your new car. Congressional approval of a $700 billion bailout to stabilize the country's financial and credit industries puts a contemporary spin on the grim humor.

No disagreement here about the need for bold steps. Exploiting the fears of a terrified nation is quite another thing.

A massive infusion of federal funds — tax receipts and, ultimately, borrowed dollars — was needed to sustain a fragile economy, forestall investor panic and bolster institutional confidence to keep lifelines of credit flowing.

The fundamental concept was dizzying enough, with huge numbers and numbing details, but the broad focus was on bailing out the financial system. The bloated, porcine legislation that passed the Senate and waddled through the House will take epic poets to describe.

Passage of emergency stabilization legislation had all the emotional leverage on its side. A 777-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrials got everyone's attention. That body blow was compounded by job cuts, payrolls dropping and factory orders falling off the cliff.

Congress saw an opportunity to pour water on a drowning economy and took it. As America groped for the life jacket held just in view, the Senate added and the House concurred in billions of tax cuts and targeted goodies.

Extortion, pure and simple: Scared, really scared — want us to do something about it? Yeah, really?

Tucked just behind election-year protection for middle-class taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax and higher FDIC insurance limits for savers, was a special deal for the Exxon Valdez oil-spill aftermath that saves those unrepentant corporate polluters $49 million.

Oregon's senators are all aquiver over a tax break for wooden-arrow manufacturers. Meanwhile, taxpayers get the shaft. The same folks take a rum punch as distillers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands will get a rebate of excise taxes.

Money for rural schools and big wet kisses for business and alternative energy might do wonderful things, but apparently they would not, did not or could not survive scrutiny of the routine legislative process.

As the national economy teetered on the edge of the abyss, with risky, unprecedented legislation hanging in the balance, Congress opened the spigot on all the fat and gravy it could pump.

We can only hope the Chinese are willing to cover the bill.