Look for the word "Bailout"...

...to be in all of the Republican talking points this fall. First I heard Indiana Representative Mike Pence (what a character!) use it about five times in a sentence on "Hardball" recently. Now Ezra Klein mentions it in his blog:

People should read Matthew Yglesias's post on the increasingly destructive role the word "bailout" is playing in our public discourse. Like Matt, I've heard pretty much every policy people don't like referred to as a bailout. Money to pay teachers is called a bailout. Monetary stimulus is called a bailout. Paying our IMF dues while the IMF makes a loan to Greece is called a bailout.

For one thing, we need a better definition of a bailout. I'd say it's something like "putting public money into a firm that's insolvent because of poor business decisions." Conversely, putting money into South Carolina's schools to blunt the cuts required by plummeting tax revenue caused by a financial-sector crisis isn't a bailout. You may think it's good or bad policy, but it's not a response to epic mismanagement on South Carolina's part. Unemployment insurance, which helps workers who were laid off after the credit markets froze up and their employer could no longer access capital or find people to purchase goods, is also not a bailout.

Meanwhile, helping Greece may be a bailout, but even that doesn't make it a bad policy decision. So on the one hand, the word "bailout" is being used promiscuously and inaccurately. And on the other hand, it doesn't even tell you that much when it's used correctly.