Over the weekend, after Europe announced a quasi-unified front to tackle the financial crisis which has spilled over into markets around the world, Washington said it planned to release details of a “comprehensive” plan to shore up America’s financial system - and by extension the economy as a whole.

Many scoffed at the idea that the government's actions to date -- hundreds of billions in liquidity injections, rescuing AIG (AIG) and Bear Stearns, the bailout package itself, and countless other measures -- didn't constitute a “comprehensive” approach. Today, as financial commentators huff and puff through reams of press releases and sift through details of the myriad new programs, we're coming to understand what a truly “comprehensive” plan entails.

Still, amazingly, bureaucrats don’t get it.

Even this morning, FDIC chairman Sheila Bair -- who by many accounts has performed admirably throughout this crisis -- described our situation as “a liquidity problem.”

Liquidity is just the external manifestation of the true issue: Too much debt. A liquidity crisis is easier to explain (and more politically palatable), because admitting the true problems facing this economy and their implications for our long-term prosperity are a bit too scary to trumpet around on national television.

Professor Depew laid out the details of why this is a debt crisis, not a liquidity crisis, last week:

"Similarly, the issue today is not one of temporary liquidity, time preferences being shortened out of a temporary risk aversion. The issue is too much debt supported by too little real income. As a result, global time preferences are retreating, risk aversion is growing, and access to credit is diminishing."

Until that debt load shrinks -- until American consumers and businesses alike save, repay debt, save again and repay some more -- the merry-go-round of bailouts, capital injections and more bailouts will continue its revolutions.

Unless they’re interrupted by a revolution of another kind.