I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty tired of the steady drumbeat of banking institutions, insurance companies, and American automakers either on the verge of collapse, in need of another bailout, or both. Last fall, when the first shoes dropped in the form of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and AIG, all we heard was the bleating hearts of Wall Street and Washington crying, “We can’t let them fail!”, or, “If we let them fail there will be a collapse like nothing you’ve ever seen before!”, or (in the case of GM), “They’re too big to allow to fail!”

So what did George W. Bush – that latter-day Herbert Hoover whose presidency looks more and more with each passing like the disaster it truly was – do? He started the gravy train of bailouts we continue to see to this day, handing out millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street fat-cats and failing institutions as if they were Nibble Rings to the Richard rabbits. And like the latter, all they did was gobble them up and beg for more.

Like Dr. Phil is wont to say, so how’s that workin’ out for ya?

I’ll mince no words here. What President Bush ought to have done then, and what President Obama ought to do now, is let them fail. All of ’em. AIG. Morgan Stanley. GM. Bank of America. Citibank. Let them know what bankruptcy means and what getting your financial house in order for the creditors and bankruptcy judges means, and send a message to the entire financial establishment out there that the government is not going to continue to prop you up anymore at the expense of the American taxpayer, American investors, and the nation’s economic well-being and future.

I mean, where does it all end? Do you just keep printing money? Where are you gonna get it from? And at what expense to the nation’s future? At what point does propping up these failing and failed institutions compromise our ability to keep truly vital financial institutions like the FDIC and critical government programs like Social Security and Medicare solvent?

You see, I don’t believe anyone anymore. I don’t believe that allowing any of these big names to fail will do any greater harm than this slow, sad decline to who-knows-where we are currently experiencing. I don’t believe keeping homeowners in foreclosed homes or close-to-foreclosed homes has any lasting benefit to the housing market. Let these companies fail, and let these homeowners find rental properties they can afford. Then let the market forces and good old-fashioned American ingenuity take care of the clean-up. It’ll happen, I guarantee.

If you don’t believe me, if you think I’m just another mean-spirited, conservative supply-sider spouting Republican talking points, ask yourself this question: what happens trillions upon billions of dollars later if after all these bailouts we’re still in the same mess? Has anyone thought of that?

The strategy employed thus far by the Bush and Obama administrations seems both without thought and without end. Keep dialing for dollars until we come up with a better solution. The markets know this, and the American taxpayer senses it and sees it for what it is – that’s why there’s no confidence out there. And until a definitive action is taken, one that says to all those companies, people, and politicians lining up with their tin cups, ‘NO MORE!’, it will continue to remain that way.

I see the current economic situation as a boil that needs to be lanced. The whole thing has become infected to the point where the entire body is feeling the pain. Well it’s time to lance that damned boil – sure, it’ll be painful, and there’ll be a lot of blood and ugly puss that comes out, but at least it will be done with and the process of healing can begin.

Until then, all we’ll be doing is experiencing death by a thousand small cuts, with no end in sight. President Obama, be bold and be decisive – after all, you’re the only one right now who can do it. Stop the insanity and stop the damned bailouts, and let’s start getting this country’s shit together.