It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily decide that, if there are two proposals, the answer is to do a little of both. In financial markets, that's often the worst

It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily decide that, if there are two proposals, the answer is to do a little of both. In financial markets, that's often the worst possible course of action. With S&Ls in the early 80's, for example, Congress could have allowed them to fail, or nationalized them. Instead, Congress gave them extra deposit insurance and deregulated their lending -- which caused them to make lots of stupid loans, backed by government insurance. Similarly, California half-deregulated their energy market, which ended up bankrupting their power companies and costing their consumers extra.