The proposed bailout of Detroit automakers brings a sense of déjà vu to Washington. Not just because of the 1979 bailout of Chrysler, but because of the unspecific, open-ended bailout plans that have been coming through Washington these days.

The automakers first came to town a few weeks ago, asking for $25 billion without so much as notes on a cocktail napkin about how they would spend the money, how it would work, and how and when taxpayers would be able to recoup their costs. The non-plan approach seemed to work for the banks, so hey, why not? But their undoing was that each of the CEOs flew down on a separate company jet—which made it hard for even their staunchest supporters to believe that they had searched their souls and balance sheets to look for every way to help themselves and their companies.

After a couple weeks of penance and planning, the Big Three automaker CEOs are back in town, after driving for hours in hybrid vehicles (by the way, did anyone think of flying coach and taking a cab?). The price tag has gone up by more than a third, to $34 billion and each of the companies want different things, from instant cash infusions of billions of dollars for General Motors and Chrysler, to a potentially untapped loan for Ford. They would lay off white and blue collar workers, figure out a way to close dealerships and reduce and change the cars they build to ones that the public is actually interested in buying.

But the most telling testimony before the Senate banking committee on Thursday came from Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist at Moody's Economy.com (speaking on his own behalf, not the company's) that in the end, the cost to keep Detroit from going bankrupt could be between $75 and $125 billion. The automakers admit that the costs could certainly go higher. To be clear, Zandi advocated in favor of the requested $34 billion bailout, because of the ripple effect of automotive related failures of spare parts manufacturers and others.

This rush to bail out approach is reminiscent of the other bailouts in the last few months: AIG and Citigroup were both rescued on the grounds that the cost of failure for such large, globally interconnected companies was too much for the economy to bear. The Federal Reserve's first $85 billion infusion to stabilize AIG has swelled to $150 billion of taxpayer risk. It's still not clear that we are through there. Citigroup was one of the “healthy” banks to get an initial $25 billion capital infusion under Treasury's bailout plan. Evidently, that health quickly deteriorated and Citi got an additional $20 billion from Treasury and the Federal Reserve agreed to guarantee against losses $306 billion worth of Citi mortgage-backed assets.

We understand that the bailouts Congress is considering – and has undertaken – do not reflect solely on the merits of the companies in question. This isn't just about whether the auto companies “deserve” to be bailed out despite their failure to meet the demands of global competition. It may be that giving GM or another company more money to bleed before they collapse and expire in a few years when the overall economy is better is a legitimate tactic. But there has to be a plan, an exit strategy. Taxpayers –  themselves financially hurting – need to know where their hard earned tax dollars are going and why.