Government subsidies are always a bad thing. They distort markets and transfer wealth from a large, often ignored portion of the population, to a smaller, more politically connected portion. This effect is universal, regardless of which government is doing the subsidizing or which industry is receiving the subsidy. What makes this story so interesting, even outright humorous, is the unabashed manner in which Mr. Obama and his fellow democrats sell their green souls for union votes.

“The people have spoken, the bastards,” probably captures the sentiment of nearly all elected officials when public opinion turns against them. But mature, stable leaders keep this sentiment to themselves, at least while they are still in office. Only officials who are unfit to lead openly attribute their political problems to a “national malaise” or to the hard-wired irrationality of the American people.

The most encouraging sign in the report is that “a majority of Americans continue to oppose any government intervention in the housing market.” The only legitimate cure for what ails housing is price and time. Prices need to fall to the point there is genuine demand. When that happens, the bottom will be in, although appreciation off that bottom will be quite slow. In the meantime, the Fed’s misguided attempt to prop up prices, in conjunction with all the interference by Congress, just stretches out the bottoming timeline.

I believe that the assertion that the bailouts prevented another Great Depression is false. My best guess is that the unemployment rate would be about where it is today with or without the bailouts. However, I deliberately choose the word “guess.” Ignatius instead uses the phrase “almost surely.” Do not confuse his stronger rhetoric with having more evidence or better judgment.

Isaiah Berlin wrote: “Disregard for the preferences and interests of individuals today in order to pursue some distant social goal that their rules have claimed is their duty to promote has been a common cause of misery for people throughout the ages.”

It seems there is not an economic fallacy so basic that it will not be espoused at some elite university.

Economists Michael Hurd and Susann Rohwedder found that between November 2008 and April 2010 “39 percent of households had either been unemployed, had negative equity in their house or had been in arrears in their house payments.” Now that is truly depressing. When people are chained to their homes it makes it that much harder to find a job.

I think pundits have not appreciated the fact that this is not quite a red/blue, Republican versus Democratic race, but a historic election in which many of the Republican candidates are first-time politicians, beholden to no one, and not part of the Republican establishment. Their ascendancy should make things very interesting.