this is not your father’s bailout package. it’s not even your bailout package.

Remember a couple months ago when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told us the $700 billion TARP plan to purchase “troubled assets” from banks was "the best way to stabilize the situation,” and would  “minimize the cost to the taxpayer," all the while stressing how urgent and needed it was to get these toxic assets off the balance sheets of the banks?

Never mind.

As it turns out, that wasn’t such a hot idea after all.  Instead, the Treasury Secretary is going to use the $700 billion to continue purchasing equity stakes in banks and to buy up credit card debt, student loans and auto loans.

Careful observers will remember Secretary Paulson’s original proposal was three pages long and gave him broad authority to do just about anything he wanted. Congress rejected that plan and after considered deliberation, instead passed a 451-page plan stuffed with billions in pork that gave the secretary broad authority to do just about anything he wanted.

That’s why we have checks and balances.

How does Paulson explain his change of mind? "I will never apologize for changing an approach or strategy when the facts change."

It is true that a very important fact changed:  Prior to passage of the $700 billion bailout legislation, the $700 billion bailout legislation hadn’t passed.  After it passed, it had passed.

Well, that is technically a “fact.”

How else was Paulson supposed to get his bill passed? Propose the HARP (Hiding Administration’s Real Plan) bill?  Confess up front that he wanted the federal government to nationalize the financial industry and purchase perfectly good consumer loans that already have an existing, liquid market?  If he told the truth he’d never get it by the American people.

Oh, wait, that’s the point, isn’t it.

Regardless, there is a related problem that remains unaddressed.  The popular term for the bailout bill, “TARP” stands for “Troubled Asset Relief Program.” Since the Treasury Secretary clearly has no interest in offering relief by purchasing troubled assets, we need a new acronym to better describe this latest version.

We’d offer up as suggestions:

CRAPP: “Cash Remitted As Paulson Prefers”
STARC: “Silly Taxpayers Angry at Real Conditions”
GUESS: “Government Underwriting Every Sad Story”
The PFKATARP: The Program Formerly Known As TARP.
AAAHHHH: “AAAHHHH”

Finally, we will point out that during the original debate on the $700 billion bailout bill we had many objections, including likening the process to selling vinyl siding and noting that the legislation was a “transparent fraud.”

And they say CNN is “the most trusted name in news.”

J.