America's current financial crisis demonstrates just how expensive socialism is. Our Republic's financial foundation has been sacrificed at the altar of "affordable housing."

The crisis finds its roots in the Carter presidency. To combat racial discrimination in lending, Carter created the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. Like most well-intentioned liberal programs, it had numerous unintended consequences. Most importantly, it provided incentives to lending institutions to make risky loans by awarding "CRA Credits." Institutions with a large number of credits received more favorable treatment than those with fewer credits.

In 1995, President Clinton and Secretary Treasury Rubin rewrote CRA lending rules, making it easier for borrowers with bad credit to obtain mortgages. It included fines for institutions that had a poor "CRA" rating. This legislation implemented affirmative action in the lending industry - the kind or regulation Fidel Castro would applaud!

Sadly, President Bush has done little to mitigate the devastating effects of the CRA. In fact, often pandering to liberal groups for support, he has added fuel to the fire by offering support for the idea of "affordable housing" via subprime mortgages. This is the true meaning of "compassionate conservatism" - it's simply a modern version of the Dewey/Rockefeller me-too Republicanism of the pre-Goldwater era.

Deregulation of American financial institutions isn't the cause of the financial crisis. There has indeed been deregulation in our economy, most notably in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerages and trucking - with great benefits to American consumers. The primary deregulation in our financial institutions during the past 30 years permitted banks to diversify. That has kept banks such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp relatively stable during this crisis.

Despite the obvious failure of their socialist policies, liberals like Barack Obama claim that the current crisis began with Wall Street greed and is a "free-market failure." In reality, it is the completely predictable result of central government socially engineered financial policy.

That our capitalist system has survived the unrelenting taxation and regulation of anti-capitalist advocates of the past century is proof of its strength. Nevertheless, the current fiscal crisis shows that continuing government interference such as that offered by Obama, Pelosi and Reid can ultimately destroy it, and that will hurt all Americans. Change - like in nickels and dimes - is all you'll have left if they win!