There is no doubt that the Bush Administration's massive $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street will pass, in some form, in the coming days. Whether or not Congress succeeds in adding pay caps for the executives of floundering investment firms, or help for homeowners to avoid foreclosure, and regardless of the outcome of the FBI fraud investigations of some of the very firms lined up at the trough, it is clear that American taxpayers will ultimately shell out close to a trillion dollars to the speculators who drove the economy to the brink.

It is breathtaking how the Bush Administration has turned a national budget surplus into a massive deficit, and squandered over a trillion dollars on the disastrous war in Iraq. But now, overnight, the same incompetent people in the White House, with the help of members of Congress who pushed for deregulation on Wall Street, are poised to commit nearly as much money to the bank bailout as they have already wasted on the war.

Somehow, even as we fail to maintain basic infrastructure in our country, leave whole cities washed out and unreconstructed after massive floods, as college becomes less affordable for more kids, as more Americans get by without health insurance or go bankrupt paying for expensive medical procedures out of pocket, we can't afford to cover these basic needs. But we can dump $700 billion on Wall Street. If Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have their way, that decision will be made within the space of a week.

Taxpayers should compare the bailout with the pricetags on a few other items deemed unaffordable by the Administration and Congress:

• Covering health care costs plus out-of-pocket medical expenses for all of America's uninsured: $100 billion

• Universal preschool: $35 billion

• Rebuilding New Orleans: $100 billion

• Free college education for everyone: $50 billion

• Total energy independence for the United States, with a shift to renewables within the next ten years: $500 billion

You get the idea. The scale of spending on the Iraq War plus the Wall Street bailout is such that it is clear that political, not budgetary, restraints account for our country's educational, infrastructure, and energy failures. Bailout proponents point out that the taxpayer "investment" in saving Wall Street is not just a net $700 billion loss. Not bailing out the banks will "greatly impede the ability of the economy to recover," Fed chairman Bernanke told Congress this week. Plus, the assets, however lousy, the government buys will eventually be sold--so taxpayers will get some of their money back, in some way.

But the same can be said of infrastructure investments, single-payer health care, and an expanded GI bill--all of which could save taxpayers billions of dollars in reduced prison and hospital bills, not to mention preserving our biggest asset: our planet.

The Appollo Alliance's proposed $500 billion investment in clean energy would create 5 million new, high quality, green-collar jobs, repair aging energy infrastructure, vastly increase energy efficiency, and stimulate the economy.

The Free Higher Ed campaign cites a Congressional report that showed the post-World War II GI Bill generated $6.90 on the dollar in increased output and higher taxes paid by the 40 percent of servicemen who never would have received a college education without it.

It doesn't take a genius to explain why maintaining an electrical grid, roads, bridges, levees, and basic first-world infrastructure in major U.S. cities is worthwhile.

Studies of high quality preschool programs show that early intervention saves about $7 in corrections, police, and other services for every dollar of investment.

National health care is the most dramatic example. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized country in the world that doesn't provide health care to all its citizens. Yet we spend more on health care, at 15% of GDP, for our inefficient, bureaucratic system than any other country. In 2005 Emory economist Dr. Kenneth Thorpe published a report for the National Coalition for Health Care that found that a universal, single-payer health care system would save the United States $1.1 trillion over ten years.

Finally, economic priorities are also moral priorities. Destroying a country, generating ill will around the world, and propping up a corrupt casino economy are both financial and moral catastrophes.