[Rick Lee]

Firstly, I don't believe gov't. duty to protect its citizens has anything to do with protecting us from our own bad decisions. It insults my intelligence when a pol. says they care about me. Yeah, they don't want me to smoke, but they want me to pay for their social programs with my cigarette taxes. Uh huh.

Also, the vast majority of subprime mortgages are performing just fine. The vast majority of such homeowners continue to make their payments on time. That might change when ARM's reset, but their income might go up in that time too and some ARM's adjust down. And yes, I fully understand how much of our economy is tied to the housing industry. That doesn't make it any more legitimate for the gov't. to step in and bail out people who bought more than they could afford, since the vast majority of us have houses or rent apartments we can afford and should continue to have to pay for ourselves. The only surefire thing I can think of that will make this subprime crisis happen again is if the gov't. shows people they will never be responsible for their own bad decisions and the rest of us will always bail them out.