[mrbowler]

Originally Posted by jeskibuff

Our whole current financial mess was brought upon us by Democrats. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and many other Democratic dimwits were pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac head first into bad business practices. At the very top of the housing "food chain", FNMA and FDMC would push their same flawed philosophy onto banks who would actually write the loans. Their bad business practices fell apart, yielding the situation we're in right now. Just look at this video to see how Republicans were trying to prevent this disaster way back in 2004, but the Democrats ended up getting their way:
YouTube - Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis

Those who desire to blame Bush for the crisis because it occurred "on his watch" merely want to ignore the obvious. First, Bush was not a dictator: Democrats still had power to affect policy and oversee GSEs like FNMA and FDMC. If you remember, 2006 was a big year for Democrats in the election and things have gone downhill FAST since then. But look back to 2002...after the double whammy of Enron and 9/11, the economy improved steadily with Bush saying "stay the course" regarding tax cuts while Democrats cried that he was guiding the country to financial ruin. Well, those tax cuts WORKED. Instead of getting worse, our economy got BETTER.

I agree with some of the links you provided, but to say the democrats are totally to blame is folly IMO. I seem to remember Bush pushing his "Ownership Society" and how he wanted to encourage people getting into houses-his administration was aware of what was happening, and if they weren't then they are even greater fools. I think they found out that the proper regulation was not in place which allowed the bubble once it got started to end in full glory-with liar loans, flippers, etc. etc. It was encouraged by the Federal Reserve. You can't blame bush for pushing the housing market-it allowed people to use houses as ATM's that allowed them to consume(buy, buy, buy)-the problem was that household income was not rising as quickly as home prices, and the rest is history.

Bush drive for home ownership fueled housing bubble - International Herald Tribune

"The Bush administration took a lot of pride that home ownership had reached historic highs," Snow said during an interview. "But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost."