In recent weeks, the federal government has announced plans to take over mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as well as lend money to insurance company AIG to stay afloat until it can sell off its major assets.

Analysts have been scrambling to come up with what this government bailout will mean for both Wall Street and taxpayers in the long run. In the short run, the hope is that the financial markets will have the cash they need to increase lending availability to consumers, especially in the mortgage industry as home prices continue to plummet and mortgage financing is harder than ever to acquire.

In subsequent announcements from the Bush administration, the plan to buy up millions of soured mortgage securities from Freddie and Fannie and to help near-bankrupt AIG will initially cost the federal government, and consequently the taxpayers, $700 billion, but there is no clear picture as to how much more could be required as time goes on.

Here is what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has had to say about the bailout proposal in the last few days:

Sept. 14: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe,” he  said in a Washington D.C. press conference.”A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance.”

Sept. 18: “I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative — a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion,” Paulson said before reporters at the Treasury Department in a prepared statement.

Sept. 21: “The biggest help we can give the American people is to stabilize our financial system right now and to prevent the system from clogging up, because if it does clog up, this is going to have an adverse effect on people’s abilities to get jobs, on their budgets, on their retirement savings, on lending for small businesses,” Paulson said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday.