The $100 trillion economic stimulus package?

Now at least a half hour behind the live coverage of today's House Financial Services Committee hearing on the Federal Reserve's many and varied liquidity measures implemented over the last year or so, there's already been a memorable moment.

In his opening remarks, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) made an interesting slip of the tongue when listing the many bailout and rescue efforts that the government has launched, all, seemingly, to no avail thus far.

Actually, immediately after the slip, he goes on to make a number of very good points about how so much money is being created and spent by the Fed with no debate or oversight.

Here it is:

When historians look back at the financial crisis and ensuing economic upheaval of the last half of the first decade of the 21st century, what will be the storyline?

I submit it will be that, while the public was focused on the tax rebate program, then on the $700 billion TARP, and finally on the $100 trillion economic stimulus package, a much larger drama was unfolding below the surface.

Yikes!

A hundred trillion dollar stimulus program?

Obviously, it's taking some people a little time to adjust to the new math in Washington.

Here's the part about the Fed's bailout programs which is the subject of the hearing:

While the public was distracted and focused on these high profile activities and events, other programs and activities some five times larger than those debated and discussed in open forums were being enacted by a select few unelected federal regulators who were making commitments of trillions of dollars backed by tax payer guarantees and loans.

It sounds as though some members of Congress may have been issued copies of G. Edward Griffin's classic The Creature from Jeckyll Island.

More later, most likely.