yes, I blame the cause of the recession and the housing bubble mess squarely on the shoulders of former POTUS Clinton and even Jimmy Carter and democrats. short explanation: Clinton reformed the Community Reinvestment Act in 1995, effectively reducing the difficulty for inner city and lower income families to obtain mortgages. Carter's original CRA allowed for the creation of mortgage securities. Housing begins to explode in the late 90's President Bush attempted to pass strict new regulations on lending. NY Times Article (Surprisingly, not too biased) As you can see in that article, democrats pushed hard against regulation, stating it greatly diminished the ability to lend to who we now know as risky borrowers. Guess what? Democrats defeated this in the Senate subcommittee's before it could even get to the Senate floor for voting. Even McCain tried to help pass a bill that would regulate Fannie/Freddie in 2005 (google S-190 bill). Democrats defeated this again. So, I pretty much render two blames on President Bush null and void: Recession Deregulation
I would love to see a better reason as to why all these mortgages were allowed to be made in the first place that allowed the housing bubble to burst. You can't really tell me the CRA was not the cause of that. Also, before the CRA, home prices rose in line with inflation, which is a good thing. It's what should happen in a properly working economy. Post CRA is when housing prices exploded, another reason why mortgages became bigger, and bigger, until the bubble burst. Now house prices are falling back to where they should be, yet people owe more than their houses were worth pre-bubble burst.
