Rafe Colburn makes an excellent analogy about the government takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:
Letting these two quasi-governmental companies fail would crater an already failing housing market, destroying an awful lot of wealth. That’s not something any politician is going to let happen if they can stop it (nor should they). The US is sort of like the family where the single income earner takes month’s wages and blows them at the casino. You may hate them for what they did, but you still have to take them back in because they’re the only one with a job in the first place.