What is wrong with this picture?

In spite of the federal government's huge $787 billion stimulus package, designed to keep the rising flood of economic disaster out of our houses, we were told last week that the rate of foreclosures and delinquencies on Americans' residences rose 73 percent in the first quarter of 2009 by comparison to the same period last year. Apart from mortgages with iniquitous terms in them, this phenomenon also was caused by more people losing their jobs, which caused them to be unable to pay their mortgages.

The economic stimulus package was billed to help people and banks deal with bad mortgages as well as to stop or at least slow the disastrous trend toward higher unemployment by creating jobs. Unemployment reached a new high in June.

The first recipient of federal government bailout funds were the big banks and financial houses. The American people were told that if those establishments failed, as they were threatening to do, it would be curtains for the credit markets and for the Western world as we know it. The banks were "too big to fail." They were allegedly saved, with billions of dollars of our money.

Last week we learned that Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest recipients of salvation financing from the government, showed in the second quarter of this year the largest quarterly profit, $3.4 billion, in its 140-year history. These profits would enable Goldman to once again pay its employees the huge bonuses they'd grown accustomed to. We all rejoiced. The question was, if they had been able to come back so quickly and so richly, was it true that they were near disaster in the first place? What would have happened if we -- the government, acting in our name -- had said to Goldman, work it out, sink or swim, not our problem?

This looks crazy, or crooked. Two White Houses, George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's, pushed this approach. The Congress approved heartily. Media reports now indicate that the Obama administration and Congress are now thinking about a second mammoth economic stimulus bill. It is reported, however, that they are wondering if the American people would stand for another big vat of ice cream to be delivered at Wall Street addresses.

A second piece of craziness last week was the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee. For most of four days the 19 members of the committee quizzed Ms. Sotomayor in a generally desultory fashion, doing most of the talking themselves. Judge Sotomayor didn't help much, seeking, rightly, to preserve her opinions on issues for if and when she faced them on the bench. It was a bit like watching a tennis match between two players with their legs in casts.

The appalling part for the public is the fact that 19 senators sat there all week playing the game. That many senators amounts essentially to a fifth of the Senate if one doesn't count the two who are hors de combat for health reasons, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Some of the senators, particularly Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III of Alabama and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, do stretch one's tolerance. But then, Ms. Sotomayor's ethnicity and gender clearly stretched theirs. Why couldn't four senators have questioned her for one or two days?

Another topic before Congress that is trying one's nerves is Mr. Obama's effort to make repairs to America's semi-ruined health-care system. There are bills in the Senate and in the House, so far unreconciled. Some of the controversy is about the budget. Will it be further imbalanced by the passage of one or another of the health-care bills?

The most evil part is behind the scenes, the pushing and pulling by the insurance companies, the hospitals, the drug companies and other interested parties through the members of Congress whom they indirectly have on their payrolls through campaign contributions.

The most glaring lack of reasonableness is the continuing role of the insurance companies in the provision of health care. A single-, government-payer system would deal them out of the game and save enormous amounts of money and fuss and bother on the part of medical providers, not to mention patients. But, accepting that the insurance companies have their teeth too far into the necks of our legislators for them to be pushed away without tearing flesh, what is fascinating is that they don't want the federal government to be one of the insurers at all.

The clear reason for such a "public plan," supported by the Obama administration, is to try to keep private insurers honest by offering an alternative to them. The true irony is that one of their arguments is that government is per se inefficient. If that is so, why are they so afraid of competing with the government? If their argument were valid, they should welcome the competition. This is one where the Obama administration is going to have to hang in there to save us.

Another marvelous example of congressional legal corruption was the attempt to purchase for $175 billion an additional seven F-22 fighter aircraft that the military does not want, a transaction the Obama administration worked hard to stop. Members of Congress wanted the aircraft because of the campaign contributions they have accepted or plan to collect from the makers of the extra planes. Former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, though, agreed with the Obama administration and helped persuade the Senate to vote down the purchase yesterday. F-22s have yet to fly in combat in either Iraq or Afghanistan, our two current wars. They cost $44,000 an hour to operate.

The next round for voters on this Congress will come in 2010. It will be useful and interesting at that point to look at the record of each of the incumbents against the above list of truly appalling spectacles. Track records and comportment should count for more than party in all cases.