House votes for bail-out legislation, President signs.

One of the strangest scenes in this whole financial debacle has been watching the faces of Congressmen and Congresswomen celebrating their collective ability to pass a bill. In other words, ALERT THE MEDIA, Congress performed its function. It's really akin to political potty-training.

And to watch their faces react to their good deed, and put it together with the raw fact of what they're doing, it's mind-boggling. Should anyone be happy that both houses of Congress have now approved, and the President has signed into law, a piece of legislation that authorizes the U.S. government to buy $700 billion worth of debt?

Locally, Congressman Charlie Dent voted in favor of Friday's Senate-approved deal, after turning against the first bail-out bill, introduced in the House earlier this week. Rep. Tim Holden voted against the bail-out bill for the second time this week.

I've placed calls to each Representative and will have a full story to their reactions in next week's Item.

How did it even get this far? Sure, deregulation can be to blame, but also consider that we're buying, as taxpayers, bad debt. It's intangible. It's next to impossible to see the value in something that has almost no chance of being repaid. Since it's most of our debt these Wall St. fat-cats have been shuttling back-and-forth (and worse, selling the risk of collecting it for profits, too), and most of us have no money, when will the taxpayers see the benefits of this deal that is so allegedly essential?

Surely, now, in less than one month, the collective taxpayers will be the proud owners of $700 billion in bad debt. It makes me wish Wall St. had gotten filthy rich on the backs of something useful, even in waste. Therein is the problem to this whole matter.

Wall St. bloomed under very false notions. The only companies making any sort of money lately are oil companies, security companies, big food producers, sports teams and adult industries. They're all driven by cash, mostly, war in the one's sense.

What ever happened to cash? Too many people tried to live outside their means. The drive for consumerism reached its peak a few years ago and now all Wall St. had left was to carry itself on the backs of people's debt and their ability or inability to pay it back.

This country must learn to sustain itself once again before we charge the new iPhone to our Visa bills and pay it back over the next three years. There are some economies doing very well, even in this country. I've listed them above, and there are more. They're all driven by cash, and when a real value is lost, there is almost no hope.

For Congress to pat itself on the back for this bail-out vote is atrocious and instead it should be getting back to work immediately to figure out how best to solve our real financial crisis. There were other deals bandied about in Congress over the last week, some that actually would put the $700 billion where it is needed - back in our hands. With interest, according to one Congressman from Ohio, this $700 billion (if and when we see a return) will ultimately equal triple that, or $2.1 trillion, or $6,900 for every breathing soul in this country, not just taxpayers. Think of what nearly $7,000 charged into the true heart of our economy would do.