"Early in George W. Bush’s first administration, a home ownership initiative was introduced, sometimes referred to as the Blueprint for the American Dream, to close the homeownership gap by 5.5 million minority families. Along with this homeownership initiative, there were other policies implemented to dismantle barriers to homeownership in minority communities. In December of 2003, President Bush signed into law, the American Dream Downpayment Act, which incorporated three steps to broaden the homeownership. The first rule was to warn buyers about mortgage costs up front so that they could make informed decisions about their purchase. Funds for home counseling services were doubled (some funds went to faith based groups to provide such counseling). The second rule was supposed to make it easier for home buyers to decipher closing costs, and the third rule was to make the paperwork for home loans easier to read."
Read what follows at your like to see what F&F did, which kind of ties in with:
Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis; meltdown
and
How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett
So yes, Bush took steps to increase minority home ownership, but he didn't enact mandates/quotas to force banks to make those bad loans.
But, you and others did open my eyes to one thing. Bush took way too much initiative on this issue, rather than just letting the free market work. THAT, I disagree with.
BTW, I believe our problems started with the collapse of our auto industry in the 70's. It's easy to ignore now because we're used to seeing so many imports on the road, but there was a time when GM had about 60% of the US market to itself. Now, it's considered good news when all of the US makers have 50%. You can't lose a third of your home market by the 90's, and now over half, to imports without taking an economic hit. If the US auto industry wasn't bleeding American jobs, and if other industries hadn't lost so many jobs, then more people would have been able to make their payments and the mortgage problem may not have been as bad as it was.
That really worked well, didn't it? No time in the history of the US was there more uninformed home buyers than during that subprime credit disaster. Many of those loans were preditory and those minorities Bush tried to help with them were not at all really to those handle complex contracts. Getting rid of down payment requirement was a recipe for disaster, as was the removal of capital gains for flipping houses. Great for short term credit bubble creation though.
Bush wasn't the only problem, obviously this was a win-win for Democrats, but he benefited short term for this long term disaster, and he was at the wheel driving with his Republican congress back when defenders claim he was fighting tooth and nail to fix it.
I bet when Obama claims that the economy is recovering slowly because Senate minority Republicans blocked some of their great jobs bills, you don't buy it (anymore than me.) Then we cant have it both ways. Either the president with his own party holds much of the responsibility or not.
I have always thought that conservatives should group Bush and Obama together, Bush-Pelosi, then Obama-Pelosi. progressivism has failed.