Taxpayers deserve plain talk about the bailout

AMERICAN taxpayers will ultimately pay the tab for solving the nation's economic crisis, so they deserve the respect of candor and plain speaking about painful subjects.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is a smart, well-spoken fellow, but the Obama administration cannot raise expectations about an important speech and then shove him on stage empty-handed.

Geithner empowered his critics and frustrated potential allies by not providing enough details about the nature and course of the new president's bailout plan. Going into his Tuesday speech, the outline was understood to be help for banks, a thawing of consumer credit and creative ways to forestall mortgage foreclosures. Not much else was learned.

Financial markets turned sour, but they hardly are a source of emotional ballast or credible introspection for the country. The muttering persisted elsewhere. People want details. Confidence-building and hand-holding are elements of working through this together.

President Obama is absolutely right he inherited a doubling of the national debt and a full-blown economic crisis. Those lines have a limited shelf life. The problem is his, and the operative question focuses on what he has done lately.

He can start with a blunt conversation about the expense to date. Information assembled by The New York Times from the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation puts the total at $8.8 trillion. Take a moment to catch your breath.

In broad swipes, the U.S. is committed to $4.6 trillion in investments — bond purchases and mortgage-backed securities; $2.4 trillion as a lender of last resort, and $1.8 trillion as an insurer of financial institutions and poorly performing assets.

Ordinary citizens carrying all the debt want a job and a roof over their heads. Obama and Geithner must talk about that.