In Ellie Leight’s letter of March 11, she blames the government for allowing the mortgage crisis to happen. She asks, “Where are the government controls and oversight?” She also asks, “Where does the real blame lie?”

Like many Americans, she forgets that the individual has the ultimate responsibility to run his or her own life, to own a house, to find financing and to live with mistakes made.

Like many Americans, she looks for the government (taxpayers) to bail out borrowers and mortgage companies for making stupid decisions.

Like many Americans, she looks to place blame on the government for the problem, instead of where it really belongs – the borrowers and the lenders.

The government grows larger and larger, taking away more individual choices and freedoms because people such as Leight look to the government, instead of themselves, to solve their own problems and regulate their own lives.

The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to limit the size and scope of the federal government.

Guess what? The federal government now regulates every aspect of our lives, from education to transportation, communication, energy, health care and banking.

I submit that every major problem we face in those areas is caused by government overregulation.

Don’t look to the government for more regulations; the nation is drowning already.

Whatever happened to individual responsibility?

George Mathews, Auburn