After weeks of swirling rumors that the government would take over two embattled mortgage giants, the Bush administration made it official Sunday.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae beyond necessary.

?[They?re] so large and so interwoven in our financial system, that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in the financial markets here at home and around the globe,? Paulson said Sunday morning.

Since last summer, the two mortgage lenders have lost about $12 billion, so a bailout isn?t a shock, but because the companies own nearly half of the country?s mortgage debt, new concern arises about the economy.

Paulson acknowledged the bailout will cost taxpayers billions, but he said it?d cost more if the companies went under.

Vying for the public?s trust on the economy, both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, weighed in on the bailout.

?We need to keep people in their homes. But we can't allow this to turn into a bailout of Wall Street speculators and irresponsible executives,? said McCain.

Obama pushed his plan for a second stimulus package to stabilize the housing market.

?The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we're fragile,? Obama said.