Once again the federal government has tossed a taxpayer lifeline to another private company that Washington says is too large to be allowed to fail.

First it was the $200 billion lifeline to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in an effort to rescue the nation's crisis-ridden housing and credit industries. On Tuesday, an $85 billion lifeline was thrown to American International Group Inc., the nation's largest insurance company, in a frantic effort to save that company from a collapse which, according to top U.S. officials, could have rippled out from Wall Street, across the nation and around the globe, threatening the world's financial system.

After the costly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rescue effort, the Bush administration said no more bailouts -- failed firms would have to suffer the consequences of their bad decisions.

For several days the administration held firmly to that policy, resisting pleas to bail out brokerage giant Lehman Brothers. The impending AIG failure was apparently too much to bear, though.

So far, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seems to have pulled the right strings: The stock market actually gained a bit of ground on Tuesday after the gloom of Monday.

One wonders, though, whether we can afford to bail anyone else out. Can the feds draw a line in the sand that will last?

Truth is, we couldn't afford these bailouts. The federal government already has spent $9 trillion more than it has, and is borrowing more every day.

As long as government is bailing out these ostensibly private businesses, it ought to consider bailing out taxpayers too. The only way to do that is to cut spending to gain control of the hundreds of billions in soaring deficits made worse by the bailouts.

Washington -- and both presidential campaigns -- claim the bailed-out companies are too large to fail. Well, the federal government is also too large to fail. But failing it is. And slashing spending is the only way to save it.