[tangomonster]

I don't always agree with George Will, but I guess it's true about becoming more conservative with age and with increased netw orth. In any case, I did agree with his column on the subprime mess and its victims.

He noted that:
Paulson has been criticized for saying that some subprime borrowers "will become renters again." But some borrowers put no money down on their houses, or took mortgages with negligible "teaser" rates, or mortgages requiring them at first to pay only interest, not principal. Such borrowers are effectively renters.

The president says: "The homeowners deserve our help." But why "deserve"? The principles of "compassionate conservatism" are opaque, but they might involve liberalism's premise that Americans are so easily victimized they must be regarded as wards of government.
Perhaps Washington's intervention in the subprime problem reveals the tiny tip of an enormous new entitlement: People who voluntarily run a risk, betting that they will escape unscathed, are entitled to government-organized amelioration when they lose their bets. The costs of this entitlement will include new ambiguities in the concepts of contracts and private property.