Clinton should bear some weight of responsibility for the current situation. He deregulated the Wall Street fuckers (albeit under republican pressure). I don't think he can say that he bears no responsibility.

There is plenty of blame to go around - in the big scheme of things, so what? The only relevance is in identifying bad policies, figuring out why they were bad, and changing it for the better.

Bush deserves his share of the blame but, because he is such an easy target, you should read this 1999 NY Times article. Excerpts:

"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. "

"The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring."

Spooky. I'm not trying to go on a Clinton-bashing tirade, but it is an interesting example of how things that sound good on the surface can contribute to disasters - in hindsight of course.

EDIT: I forgot what is probably the spookiest part:

"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's."

The Democrats were trying to "buy" votes in the suburbs by subsidizing poor people (one of their constituencies) to move to largely Republican suburb areas. I know that's very cynical but I firmly believe it. To the people at the top rungs of power it really is a Chess game and they are buying the pieces with our money.

Bill Clinton is Teflon to a certain extent, he should be an honorary Kennedy. For example how much blame did he get for the September 11 attacks even though it was his gutting of the intelligence services that caused them to be overwhelmed by more information than they could decode and to miss some of the signs. Am I saying that he's completely responsible for all of those deaths? No, but he definitely should get a big share of the blame for it. If I were him I'd be haunted by that guilt.

Quote:
The Democrats were trying to "buy" votes in the suburbs by subsidizing poor people (one of their constituencies) to move to largely Republican suburb areas. I know that's very cynical but I firmly believe it. To the people at the top rungs of power it really is a Chess game and they are buying the pieces with our money.

Bill Clinton is Teflon to a certain extent, he should be an honorary Kennedy. For example how much blame did he get for the September 11 attacks even though it was his gutting of the intelligence services that caused them to be overwhelmed by more information than they could decode and to miss some of the signs. Am I saying that he's completely responsible for all of those deaths? No, but he definitely should get a big share of the blame for it. If I were him I'd be haunted by that guilt.

I know this response will be boring because it isn't very argumentative or mean, BUT here it goes: I have no doubt that certain people in each party use policies for scheming political ends. But I think encouraging poor people to move to suburbs for votes is kind of a stretch. A few people probably had that as their primary goal in instituting the policy, and a few (perhaps many) more saw it as a secondary benefit. But there are many democrats I know that genuinely want to help people, and that is why they adopt such policies.

I've said it before, I don't align myself with either party (I'm more of a Libertarian or "Classical Liberal") because they both want to use big government to serve their policies. They may or may not have good intentions, but the result is the same; erosion of personal freedom. [In the interest of full disclosure, I'm of course not perfectly neutral, there is a small subset of Republicans I agree with (see Ron Paul and often Arlen Specter), but far fewer Dems. But the Republican party as a whole has abandoned me].

My bigger point of the post is that when you attempt to serve a goal - no matter how noble - by making the government "bigger" (that is more government control and spending), you take a huge risk of screwing everyone in the end.

Quote:
"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. "

"The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring."

"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's."

Does anyone here remember the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005? This was a bill proposed by several Republican senators who felt that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to be reigned in. John McCain eventually signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor. Unfortunately, the Democrats were not inclined to place limits on such big contributors to their campaign funds. So, the bill went to committee where it died.

Chris Dodd and Barac Obama received more money from Fanie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other politician. Barney Frank and many other Dems also received contributions.