SOMETHING ELSE YOU WON'T HEAR FROM SEAN HANNITY

(h/t Atrios)

The wingnuts have been trying to pin the blame for the Big ShitPile on the CRA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Democrats to the exclusion of all other causes. Barry Ritholtz has gathered a few videos of Pres. Fredo pushing for subprime mortgage lending and the NY Times does more to explain how the criminal Bush regime had a hand in the Crunch.

White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire
By JO BECKER, SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and STEPHEN LABATON
Published: December 20, 2008
NY Times

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.

The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

...for much of Mr. Bush’s tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put homeownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers like Mr. West.

So Mr. Bush had to, in his words, “use the mighty muscle of the federal government” to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Mr. Bush persuaded Congress to spend up to $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

...Mr. Bush populated the financial system’s alphabet soup of oversight agencies with people who, like him, wanted fewer rules, not more.

The Times article also has another installment of the case of the fired whistle blower. Armando Falcon formerly headed the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight and in February 2003 finished a report that warned that Fannie and Freddie were in danger of failing. He wouldn't shut up and as a result was fired.