Those watching Bernanke's testimony before Congress were just treated to a socialist diatribe by a congresswoman prepped to embarrass Bernanke as the "former CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS)." Of course the former CEO of GS she was referring to is Treasury Secretary Paulson, resulting in her utter embarrassment rather than Bernanke's. Not to be outdone, a Republican colleague just had to be educated on national television about the basic functioning of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF).
I agree that knowing Bernanke and Paulson's resumes should not be expected of your average person. Nor is the TAF a household concept. But these lawmakers are on the House Budget Panel.
This is not some libertarian tantrum, Minyans. Congress is trying to figure out how to spend a few more hundreds of billions of your dollars "to help the economy", and they don't seem to have a clue of what planet they are on.