You just knew George W. Bush wouldn't leave the White House without yet another calamity befalling our nation.

Now, Bush and his cronies want taxpayers to pay for the bad lending practices of investment bankers - to the tune of nearly $1 trillion.

You may quibble that the quoted price of backstopping Wall Street is actually an estimated $700 billion. But that's just the legislative limit.

Pessimists say absolving financial firms of their red ink could cost at least an additional $300 billion or possibly another $1.1 trillion.

And none of that money will go toward helping folks stay in their homes or prevent new foreclosures.

You might even say it can't be helped. That the plan is needed to avert a depression rivaling the great one that hobbled our nation in the 1930s.

I say that's not only inevitable now, but was highly predictable given the Enron and Worldcom scandals during Bush's first term and his continuing to hypocritically espouse "free markets" and deregulation while letting credit card companies charge usery rates and nearly eliminating personal bankruptcy protections.

Bailing out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street is yet another serious mistake from an administration that only makes historically big ones - like invading Iraq based on a lie.

After eight years of squandering our treasury and mismanaging our country with almost no Congressional oversight, Bush has already nearly doubled the national debt. And that's before this latest fiasco.

Don't believe me?

On the day Bush was sworn in, Jan. 20, 2001, the national debt stood at $5.7 trillion ($5,727,776,738,304.64 to be precise), according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Today, the debt stands at $9.7 trillion ($9,785,866,165,910.40).

We're told we can't afford to build new schools.

We're told we can't afford highway improvements and that we should sell them off to foreign companies.

We're told we can't afford national health care, and to push for it is tantamount to communism.

Yet, Bush is willing to print money and devalue the dollar to nothing - not to mention risk rampant inflation - for this?

But while Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are busy greenmailing Congress for the bailout - as if the $4.3 million Goldman Sachs spent lobbying this year wasn't enough - even members of the President's own party aren't buying the lie this time.

"This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it's un-American," Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky, said today.

The Hall of Fame pitcher (and former Philadelphia Phillie) certainly should know a spit ball when he sees one.