What did I tell you? I wrote on Tuesday that if the financial markets continued to decline we would likely see Congress or the Bush administration come back to us and say the government needs even more control over the economy. Guess what? We may already be heading down that road:

Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

But just remember, the bailout wasn’t socialistic at all. Ha.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a great post up today on this subject:

There’s a lot of blog buzz over Barack Obama’s membership in the socialist New Party. You can read about it here, here, and here.

A year ago, I might have gotten as worked up about this as everyone else seems to be.
But after watching a GOP White House and Republican collaborationists fork over billions upon billions in socialist aid to private businesses, presiding over the most massive nationalization efforts I’ve seen in my lifetime over the past year — and then watching John McCain pitch his Treasury Department-as-national loan servicer plan during the debate — it’s hard for me to muster up much more angst than I already have.

Socialism is here and now.