This past weekend, they delivered a worsening of America's financial crisis, which is the direct result of rightwing economic policies of deregulating Wall Street. Some Democrats colluded in these policies, but their essence was Republican ideology. Under George W. Bush, misguided theories of deregulation were entangled with corruption and incompetence in enforcing the scant regulation that remained. The result was subprime and its spawn.

This weekend, Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, ran out of tricks. He belatedly grasped...