Bailout mania! The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve are spending trillions--and Congress is letting them get away with the biggest theft in history.(ECONOMY)(Cover story)

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Jet-setting CEOs battered and humbled by outraged lawmakers." This, or some similar title, may be affixed to what will undoubtedly become for many people the iconic event of the unfolding economic debacle known as "The Bailout-O-Rama that Grew, and Grew--and GREW."

The CEOs of the Big Three automakers--Alan Mulally of Ford, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler, and Richard Wagoner of GM--had come to Washington seeking a $25 billion loan package to save their beleaguered companies. At a November 19 hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, the Detroit execs ran into a buzz saw when they revealed under questioning that each of the mendicants had flown to the nation's capital in a private corporate jet.

"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) told the spendthrift CEOs at the committee hearing. "It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious." Fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle chimed in with reprimands. After being roundly chastised, the wastrels were sent back to Detroit and told to prepare specific bailout plans to present to Congress. The TV pundits, talk-radio hosts, and the blogosphere went wild; here were the perfect targets on which to vent one's wrath over the current economic mess and the injustice of the ever-growing demands for more and bigger bailouts of failed and failing enterprises. Video clips of the committee hearing--with Mulally, Nardelli, and Wagoner looking like auto crash dummies after a high-impact collision with a brick wall--played and replayed on news programs, and now have been permanently immortalized with numerous postings on YouTube and other Internet sites.

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In early December, when Congress and the White House took up the auto bailout again, the original $25 billion request had been trimmed to $14 billion and the Ford Motor Company had announced that it would not be seeking short-term federal aid. President Bush and Democratic leaders in Congress lined up for the bailout, while Republicans put up temporary resistance to the funding, as tensions mounted in the countdown to the congressional Christmas recess. The House of Representatives voted on December 10th to approve the $14 billion government bailout of the U.S. automobile industry (H.R. 7321). However, on December 11, the Senate refused to pass this legislation. In response, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said from aboard Air Force One the next morning: "Congress spoke last night. They don't have the votes to do anything." The White House may divert money from the Wall Street bailout fund to the automakers.

The prolonged and heated drama surrounding the auto bailout effort is remarkable for the disproportionate angst and ink that have been spent on it. Twenty-five billion dollars, or even $14 billion, may not be chump change, but in comparison to the