As I’ve watched the response of Washington to the ongoing economic crisis, I’ve been reminded of that quote from Shakespeare: “Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant taste of death but once.” The newest, the latest effort to rid the economy of the toxic assets that are crippling the banking system, an effort that will be announced tomorrow, simply makes this observation seem even more pertinent.

What are “toxic assets?” They are assets worth less than they used to be worth, usually because they weren’t worth an inflated value to begin with. Banks don’t want to recognize the lower real worth of these assets because it would not only ruin their own profits, but lessen the reserves they need to lend our more money. Toxic assets are thus the undigested and indigestible thing stuck in the throat of the economic system and strangling that system. The have to be cleared out to let the system breath again.

There are two ways to do this. With a huge crash. Or with the slow, ongoing, endless crash that is going on now as planners in Washington create increasingly exotic ways to avoid facing the fact that one painful Heimlich is better than continuous forced attempts at reanimation.

We don’t need yet another dragged out bailout. The government should infuse its billions only after the banks have written down or written off all the toxic debts they themselves incurred. Federal money would then go into a successful rebuilding effort, not another rouging of the corpse.