from worse to worser

Just when I thought the feds were about to play their ace and drop the biggest bombshell of an economic policy I can remember in the form of a mortgage bailout package, they hit me with a surprise left and drop a different one that I didn't see coming (but perhaps should have). This whole rebate plan is just plain sick. I read an article today that had so many angles and quotes to make one's blood boil it should have had a health warning at the beginning of it. I don't have time to deconstruct it right now, but suffice it to say that it seems my recent heaping of coals on Dubya was perhaps a little misplaced, only in that the entire crowd of pols up there seems to be equally idiotic and deserving of contempt.

Even though this is 20th-century America, I still have a hard time believing this junk is passing for positive economic policy in the minds -- or at least the votes -- of so many people in power. If there was previously any doubt left out there about how flimsy and laughable this whole propped-up economic system of ours is, these latest brainy moves should erase it all. This is like the whole BGE (that's Baltimore Gas and Electric for you non-locals) rate increase debacle being played out on a national scale. Election year, rising costs that were plenty avoidable, shifting of blame away from those who deserve it, those who were duped refusing to admit their foolishness, huge $$ handouts and band-aid plans that penalize the many for the mistakes of the few...it's all there. And it just keeps spiraling more and more out of control.

I would end this with some variant of, "Could it get any worse?" But I'm afraid to ask that anymore. We already know the answer anyway. All that's left is to just grab a bag of popcorn, kick back, and eagerly await the next installment of the variety show that is American government at its finest.