Heading towards Socialism?

Alan Keyes calls mortgage bailout 'socialistic'

And he's not alone - many others have spoken about this. He says:

...what we are watching is the transformation of our nation from a society that was based on a concept of economic freedom to a socialist society.

Watching the hearings with Barnie Frank and Christopher Dodd was "surrealistic" - it was like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Who is really responsible for this fiasco? I think we all know. Ann Coulter writes:

"...In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."

Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.

A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed.

Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off."

And there is even more if one wishes to review the record:

Kevin Hassett comemnts at Bloomberg.com "How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis":

...It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end....

John Lott, Jr writes: Analysis: Reckless Mortgages Brought Financial Market to Its Knees

Surprisingly, research done by economists a decade ago in 1998, particularly by Professors Ted Day and Stan Liebowitz at the University of Texas at Dallas, predicted the current problems and tried to warn people of a different cause. Starting during the early 1990s, mortgage-underwriting standards have been consistently weakened. Many of the names involved in the forefront of those changes, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as Countrywide and Bear Stearns, have been the most prominent financial entities to become insolvent.

Others did not share these economists' concerns. The Wall Street Journal quoted Congressman Barney Frank in 2003 as criticizing Greg Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, "because he is worried about the tiny little matter of safety and soundness rather than ‘concern about housing.'"....

Ron Paul, a Congressman who actually understands economics, says that "Bailouts will lead to rough economic ride"

I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay....

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term....

And Walter Williams writes in "Scaring Us to Death":

There is a H.L. Mencken quotation that captures the essence of this year's politics:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

...Most of today's economic problems, whether it's energy, health care costs, financial problems, budget deficits or national debt, are caused by policies pursued by the White House and Congress. As my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell suggested in a recent column, we don't look to arsonists to put out fires that they've created; neither should we look to Congress to solve the problems they've created.

Cliff Kincaid's "Socialism Is Coming to America" begins:

In his classic 1932 book, Toward Soviet America, Communist Party boss William Z. Foster wrote about how “The United Soviet States of America” will come about. As a result of various capitalist crises, the national government would assume more and more control over the economy. “In finance,” he wrote, “it will mean the nationalization of the banking system and its concentration around a central State bank…” Foster is dead, but the Wall Street financial “bail-out” plan offered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in coordination with the Federal Reserve, will bring about a socialist America....

Newt Gingrich says Paulson’s bail-out is “obscene”...

And the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, says Crisis Shows Failure of 'New Economy'

And here is a Petition to Congress of over 150 economist's who say bailout is wrong.