The government artificially (which is often fine) created a housing opportunity incorrectly via:
Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
Freddie/Fannie Charters circa 1992-1993
Bullshit.
You right wing apologists would track the CAUSE of a Murder all the way back to the Union worker who dug the lead ore out of the ground.
The ACTUAL collapse of the Financial sector had ONE cause.
In 2004, Investment bankers from the largest financial institutions met in a basement room in a Government building with the SEC.
They asked the SEC to lift a regulation specifying Debt Limits and Capital Reserves that lender must hold to minimize risk.
The Bush admin SEC agreed to lift these regulations, and
that freed Billions of dollars to be invested in the NEW mortgage backed securities and derivatives that were made legal in 2001 via mortgage deregulation.
Right there.... at that moment, the 2001 republican idiocy that resulted in tremendously risky loan "products" receiving triple A bond ratings, MERGED with the 2004 republican idiocy of no longer requiring financial institutions to HEDGE their bets with reserve cash.
The result? The slightest hickup in the housing market would result in losses the banks could no longer cover with reserves, because they not only had no reserves, but had had their debt ceilings removed.
The SEC ABANDONED its regulatory role and allowed the financial sector to "police itself".
WITHOUT THESE TWO REPUBLICAN SPONSORED EVENTS, the collapse of the financial sector would NOT have occurred ( just a huge housing recession) and NO BAILOUT would have been necessary.
The cause of an event is the most proximate action, without which, the event would not have taken place.
It doesn't matter that lead was mined and a bullet made and sold and put into a gun that was in the house. IF the person holding the gun had not pointed it and pulled the trigger... NONE of the prior events would have lead to THAT death.
In fact- the US has been cruising down the DEBT based economy highway for a while- Ever since the revival of FREE MARKET THEORY...
And that has ALWAYS been a republican agenda.
Everything the Republicans have done has tunred out disasterously... for the country and for the citizens.
But it has done WONDERFULLY for the ultra rich. But then, the Republican agenda is that Government is evil...
Technically... that makes them all traitors.