Once again, I’m baffled. A few months ago, we were told by a breathless Hank Paulson that we were perhaps hours away from a complete financial meltdown, the likes of which we’ve never seen. Remember? They said credit had frozen and it was an impending capital-D-Disaster. And the only way to avert Disaster was for Congress to pass, at lightning speed and with minimal consideration and certainly no debate, legislation authorizing some $700 billion taxpayer dollars for… well, for… um, what was that money going for again?

Silly Americans. Of course the government has our best interests at heart. Why question them? Just look how much the economy has improved since Congress passed the original TARP bailout bill. What? What did you say? Unemployment is at the highest level in 26 years? The Dow just had its worst January since 1916, down 8.84%? January was the fifth month in a row that the Dow fell? I don’t understand. First of all, Congress passed the first bailout bill. Secondly, and most importantly, Barack “Messiah” Obama was elected President. Hello? Didn’t everybody get the memo? How is this possible?

So Washington’s answer to this is — you guessed it — an almost $1 trillion piece of legislation they’re calling a “stimulus.” One. Trillion. Dollars. Wanna see what that looks like?

That’s one thousand billions. Twelve zeroes. Can you even begin to get your head around that amount of money? It’s truly mind blowing. If your income was a million dollars a year, it would take you a million years to get a trillion dollars.

Now that they’re freed from their obligation to support President Bush as a fellow Republican, some of the Republicans in Congress are experiencing spontaneous regeneration of spinal tissue and opposing this ridiculous bill. Good for them. Whoop-de-do. Trouble is, they’ve gotten themselves voted out of power in both houses as a result of their abdication of principles up to now, so their opposition will be ineffective. Maybe they’ll get some pork trimmed off the bill, but the end result is going to be total insanity. Meanwhile, President Obama has resorted to penning an editorial in the Washington Post to try to convince us all, yet again, that we’re facing a capital-D-Disaster if Congress doesn’t pass this “stimulus” spending bill, which includes such goodies as $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. Everybody knows that we will cease to function as a nation without an extra $50 million for the NEA, right?

Fasten your seatbelts, dear readers. This is going to be a very bumpy ride downhill.