“No one should assume that the government will step in to bail them out if their firm fails.”

That’s Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, talking tough with lawmakers last week as he promoted the government’s remake of the financial regulatory framework.

Talk is cheap, however. And the notion that the plan shows a new aversion to bailouts is not at all supported by its chapter and verse. In fact, there’s precious little in the 88-page document about how the government will eliminate systemic risks posed by financial firms that aren’t allowed to fail because they’re simply too big or to interconnected to other important economic players here and abroad.

Rather than propose ways to shrink these companies and the risks they pose, the Geithner plan argues instead for enhanced regulatory oversight of the behemoths. This suggests the taxpayer safety net will be larger after our national financial train wreck, not smaller.

More than two years after the crisis began, “too big to fail” remains “too problematic to address” with anything other than more souped-up regulation. Given that earlier efforts at policing these entities failed so miserably, why should anyone think that a new-and-improved regulatory approach will fare better?