In his own words

Barack Obama:

Unfortunately we've gotten caught up in an ideological battle where one party says the only way to create job opportunities is through the marketplace and government should not be involved at all. Whereas my argument would be we also have to make sure that people are trained for jobs, that they've got childcare so that they can go to a job, so that there's affordable housing in those areas where jobs are being created, that entrepreneurs in minority areas are getting financing to create their own businesses and create jobs in those communities and all of those involve not just individual responsibility but also societal responsibility.

Got that? You're not responsible for attaining the right skills to obtain the job you desire, the government (i.e. the rest of us) is. You're not responsible for getting childcare for the child you decided to have, the government is. The government also has the right, the very mandate, to interfere in the financial and housing markets to ensure that certain desired outcomes are achieved.

What's also instructive here is the distrust and disdain of the marketplace. The implication of Obama's argument is that if an entrepreneur doesn't receive funding it's the fault of the marketplace. Well, either that or he doesn't have a very good business idea. Who is a better judge of an entrepreneur? A banker with his own money on the line or a politician with yours?

With regard to the housing market meanwhile, one of the key reasons we have an affordable housing problem in some parts of the country is because government regulation makes it so difficult to expand the supply, which drives up prices. (And if this election has taught us anything it is that falling housing prices -- i.e. making housing more affordable -- are also a problem that politicians believe warrants government intervention)

Is it any wonder he is getting hit with the socialist tag? Not, mind you, that John McCain is exactly libertarian.