Georgie did it!

Roger at XDA has a great post on who's to blame for the apparent economic meltdown. In it he links to an article from The Hill in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flat out denies the Democrats are to blame for any part of the mess and places the blame solely on George W. Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked Tuesday whether Democrats bear some of the responsibility regarding the current crisis on Wall Street, had a one-word answer: “No.”

Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped President Bush’s “mismanagement” of the economy and a lack of regulation that led to the current situation.

Now, rewind five years to the other article Roger links, this one from the New York Times. From September 11, 2003:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

[ ... ]

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

So, to set the record straight, the Bush administration wanted to fix the housing credit problem five years ago, but were blocked by the Democrats. Of course, it's all those bad loans that were issued to people for "affordable housing" that got the housing market into the mess it's in.

Should the Bush administration have been more aggressive in pushing this legislation? Probably. That doesn't change the fact that it died due to lack of support from the left side of the aisle.

The Democrats' fingerprints are all over this mess.