There’s more than one way to deal with almost any problem – take the disposal of toxic chemicals, for example: If a chemical company needs to rid itself of toxic chemicals, they’re going to have to choose between treating those chemicals to reduce their toxicity, or something more creative… like bury them!

But burying toxic chemicals brings with it its own set of risks and drawbacks. For starters, chances are those buries 55 gallon drums of dioxin are going to seep back to the surface eventually, just as they did in the Love Canal Disaster of the 1970s in Niagra Falls. In that particular instance, 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried beneath a residential area had horrific effects on the residents who lived there.

Indeed, just throwing a tarp over a problem can certainly disguise it; at the very least it’ll keep it out of sight and out of mind for a while… but ultimately, that problem’s still there.

That’s what’s so funny about the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). We’re throwing a TARP over trillions of dollars worth of toxic assets to “get rid” of it. Apparently the irony was lost on whoever’s responsible for naming the program.

In turn, millions of Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the future of our economy. Not only are we facing a serious “toxic spill” financially, lawmakers have been content to throw money at the problem since October 2008.

Eventually, that toxicity is going to seep into our financial back yards and basements.

Elizabeth Warren is the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel assigned to be the watchdog over TARP and other recovery initiatives. I first saw her in MaxedOut, a documentary aimed at informing Americans about the mountains of debt that we’re amassing at breakneck speed. In the film, she warned about the dangers of subprime debt long before most Americans knew what it was.

According to Warren, despite Goldman Sachs CEO cum-Treasury Secretary Paulson’s assuranced that taxpayers would be making an investment through TARP that would be repayed dollar-for-dollar, the Congressional Oversight Committee determined that Americans were only getting $66 of value for every $100 check written in our names. Yikes…

Warren appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on April 15 to discuss what the bailouts really mean for Americans. The interview can be watched below: