Betty Winston Baye': The Real Leeches Are Wall Street's Robber Barons.

The $700 billion taxpayer-financed bailout being proposed for the wizards of Wall Street adds up to about $2,000 for every woman, man and child in America.

But get this: If Congress doesn't act quickly, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke makes a dire prediction. There "could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and our economy," he told the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

So, there you have it. The mendacity and malfeasance of the robber barons of Wall Street, aided by their sycophants in Congress, have put all our futures in very serious jeopardy, perhaps triggering another Great Depression.

These are the same people who insisted that they didn't need to be regulated by government. Now they cry for the government -- us -- you and me -- to bail them out, and oh by the way, it would be best if $700 billion were given pretty much without any strings.

The nerve of these people is superseded by the nerve of some people in our own metro area who have complained about food stamp recipients being given free food to replace what they had lost in the power outages that resulted when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through the region.

This food giveaway apparently is perceived by some as another rich example of how hard-working Americans are being put upon by the lazy and undeserving.

Come on, people. You complain about some of our neighbors being given a crust of bread instead of being grateful not to have been one of them? You're complaining about hungry people getting fed rather than being thankful for not being killed in the storm -- or thankful that, though you lost a freezer filled with food, your whole house wasn't blown down?

It's a matter of perspective.

Nevertheless, I called federal food-stamp officials to refresh myself about the program, and in hopes of clearing up the persistent myths that food-stamp recipients are in the main bad, lazy people looking to get over on hard-working, good people.

Here are a few facts: Kentucky's food stamp recipients receive an average $1.04 per meal; 74 percent of Kentucky's food-stamp benefits go to households with children, many of them working families. Hello. And most of the rest of the food stamps go to the elderly and disabled. Hello. Moreover, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the food-stamp program delivered almost $675 million to Kentucky's economy last year, benefiting farmers, grocers and small businesses throughout the state. Hello.

In other words, the food-stamp program creates jobs, and many Kentuckians who receive them had jobs but lost them. In 2007, in fact, participation in Kentucky rose to 602,022, a 49 percent increase since 2000.

And while some Kentuckians fume about feeding poor people, those higher up in the economic stratosphere are really the ones who are feeding at the trough.

For perspective, the National Priorities Project provided a short list of what could be done with the $700 billion being proposed to rescue Wall Street.

That money would cover the cost of health care for 51.6 million people for four years; pay the salaries of 2.9 million elementary school teachers for four years; provide 27 million four-year scholarships for university students; repair all of the nation's 77,000 deteriorated bridges, and still leave $519 billion to spare; and rebuild all of the nation's 33,000 deteriorating schools, and still leave $664 billion to spare.

In the midst of our current economic crisis, I'm reminded anew of the people who voted for George W Bush because, they said, he seemed like a guy they wouldn't mind having a beer with.

Well, it's nearly eight years later, and President Bush (who personally knows a thing or two about driving a business, and now the nation, into the ground and being bailed out by taxpayers) is about to exit the saloon, head back to his ranch in Crawford, leaving the chumps behind -- that's you and me -- to pay the tab.

Betty Winston Bayé is a Courier-Journal editorial writer and columnist. Her columns appear Thursdays on the editorial page. Read her online at courier-journal.com/opinion. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com