Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants to extend the Federal government’s intrusion into our banking system.

Our intervention was necessary to protect the broader US banking system. And similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion[.]

No, it wasn’t. No, it would not be.

Businesses thrive or fail on their managers’—individual Americans acting in concert with other individual Americans—performance or failure to perform. We individual Americans thrive, or not, on our own decisions, made out of our own obligations and determination to get ahead.

It isn’t government’s job to inure us individual Americans or our businesses from the vagaries of the marketplace or—especially—from our own poor decision-making. It’s government’s job to create and enforce a framework within which our free market can operate freely, and within which personal responsibility, whether as individuals or as business managers, can operate freely.

If our decisions are without consequence, we are neither operating freely nor in accordance the requirements of our personal responsibility.