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After the Bailouts, Washington's the Boss
...Today the U.S. government, directly or indirectly, underwrites nine of every 10 new residential mortgages, nearly twice the percentage before the crisis. Just last week, the Treasury said it would cover an unlimited amount of losses at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through 2012....

...But the strengthening of the big banks may be distorting the market. Although smaller banks have long had a higher cost of funds than big ones, the gap has widened. The gap averaged 0.03 percentage point for the first seven years of the decade, but it jumped to a 0.66-point disadvantage for smaller banks in the four quarters ended Sept. 30, estimates Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank. That suggests investors think the government would bail out big banks, but not small ones, if crisis erupted anew, he says....

...The International Monetary Fund estimates U.S. government debt will swell to the equivalent of 108% of annual economic output in 2014, from 62% in 2007, absent politically difficult steps such as raising taxes or cutting benefit programs. As federal debt climbs, an ever-greater fraction of the budget goes just to pay interest, much of it to overseas creditors. The bill will worsen if interest rates rise from their current low levels.

Interest on the debt cost $182 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. Robert Pozen, chairman of MBS Investment Management, worries that within a decade, the interest bill could rival the defense budget, which was $637 billion last year.

The interventions also carry political costs. Their chief architects -- Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former Treasury chief Henry Paulson -- say saving Wall Street was essential to saving Main Street. Many Americans, and a vocal group of lawmakers, disagree.

Only 21% of Americans polled by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News in December said they trusted the government to "do what is right," versus 64% shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In Congress, there is growing support for having the Government Accountability Office review the Fed's monetary policy, a move the Fed says would crimp its independence....