I usually don’t enjoy congressional hearings, but a recent hearing before the domestic policy subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was riveting.

The subject was whether the Treasury Department was using bailout funds to increase foreclosure prevention, as Congress intended.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., questioned Neel Kashkari, the interim assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability, on this C-SPAN session that had me hollering. You can also watch it on YouTube.

“In the neighborhood I grew up in, in the inner city of Baltimore, one of the things that you tried to do was make sure that you were not considered a chump,” Cummings said. “And what ‘chump’ meant was that you didn’t want people to see you as just somebody they could get over on.”

Corporate America is playing us like chumps. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and the folks he’s assembled to try to get us out of the economic tempest are being played like chumps.

Exhibit A: American International Group. AIG, the insurance giant, was saved from failure by an $85 billion loan. Then AIG sponsored a lavish junket at a swank hotel after the infusion of government money — our money.

Most recently, AIG said that it would allow employees to collect $503 million in deferred compensation.

But it’s not just about AIG, Cummings said. More companies are lined up to get a government handout.

Kashkari testified he was told by staff that the money was going to be released as an incentive to retain certain AIG employees.

“We need them to keep working, so that they can sell off the assets and pay back the taxpayers,” he said.

Cummings responded: “We need them to keep working, but … I guarantee you there are people who are lined up saying, ‘Please quit so I can get a job!'”

Originally, Paulson pleaded for the $700 billion bailout money to buy up troubled mortgage assets. But Paulson said Treasury realized this wasn’t going to help fast enough, so it decided to pump money into banks and other financial institutions. However, we’ve learned that some of the bailout money can be used by companies to buy competitors.

It’s ridiculous when not enough is being done to help individuals who are losing their jobs and their homes.

Just this week, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) reported that the calls for housing guidance it is getting are setting new records each week.

And an increasing number of consumers taking NFCC’s Mortgage Reality Check are indicating they are in imminent risk of foreclosure.The self-assessment test, is at HousingHelpNow.org.

We can’t “afford to be chumps,” Cummings said. “We can’t afford it!”