Reply #41: The Republicans held power from '94 to '06. But I want to know

[beachmom]

what Democrats did to fight deregulation. Precious little from what I have seen.

Do you have the full text of the housing bill? Because again, the housing bill (which I thought was the one Kerry & Dodd worked on) did not work. Maybe that was the Bush Administration's fault in part, but the fact remains that the housing situation has gotten worse, not better, since the summer of '08.

The original bill which you posted was from 2000 -- what was in it? The title does not sound promising:

"Establishes the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund in the Treasury to promote the development of affordable housing."

Actually, the problem we ran into was people who had no business buying a home were given loans to do so anyway. Of COURSE, they defaulted, and that was what started the down fall of our financial markets. I think the problem is that there was this idea, shared by both liberals and conservatives, that the American Dream involved owning a home, and that everyone should do so. Well, that is wrong. There is something worse than not ever owning a home: LOSING a home one could not afford with a horrible mortgage loan offered by sleazy unaccountable lenders.