Today's column is about the regulatory failure leading up to the mortgage crisis, thanks to the Bush administration's promotion of free markets and similar attitudes at the Federal Reserve. Of course this is an implicit plea for more and better regulation. Government intrusion into markets always comes with costs as well as benefits -- including the taxpayer cost to set up agencies and pay the regulators. But in this case, the agencies were already there. Taxpayers were already financing mortgage regulators to the tune of millions. They just didn't do anything.

After the intial bailout, fixing the mortgage problem shouldn't require fiscal sacrifice. Make existing regulators do their jobs. Combine and rationalize the alphabet soup of agencies overseeing banking and lending -- FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency etc. -- and you'll get better regulation and save money.