This is just wrong.

The Washington Post reports voters spread the blame for the broader economic problems facing the country:

In an open-ended question, a quarter of all voters said George W. Bush is responsible for the economy’s relatively poor performance, more than any other single cause. About a quarter name Congress (8 percent), the federal government (8 percent) and Democrats and Republicans (5 percent each) together. Eighteen percent said Wall Street financial institutions and banks shoulder responsibility, 7 percent blame “everyone” and 5 percent highlighted the role of individuals who borrowed too much.

There is of course a partisan divide:

Nearly half of all Democrats blame Bush; that is just 4 percent among Republicans. Moreover, no Democrats blamed “Democrats” generally; no Republicans singled out “Republicans.”

It’s just so wrong, there is a strong historical record, which clearly demonstrates the current financial meltdown should be laid at the feet of President Clinton, Congressional Democrats and their community organizers.

Matt Lewis reminds us that in 1999, President Clinton set “standards” that forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make bad loans.

As Lewis writes, in 1999, the Los Angeles Times noted:

Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws.

The New York Times reported Fannie Mae came under “increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.”

The move to “subprime mortgages” was also pushed by banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies, seemingly blind to the increased risk of a “government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.” Under Andrew Cuomo, HUD required that half of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be loans to low and moderate-income borrowers:

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

Sadly, there are more folks to blame than just President Clinton and former HUD Secretary, and now New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo.

At a 2004 Congressional hearing, Democrat after Democrat covered for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and railed against regulating Fannie and Freddie. Watch the following video and see Democrats fend off Republican calls for regulation:

Blame should also be heaped upon the community organizers. First there is ACORN. As explained by Mona Charen, ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It is a left-wing “umbrella of ‘community organizing:’”

They agitate for higher minimum wages, attempt to thwart school reform, try to unionize welfare workers (that is, those welfare recipients who are obliged to work in exchange for benefits) and organize voter registration efforts (always for Democrats, of course). Because they are on the side of righteousness and justice, they aren’t especially fastidious about their methods. In 2006, for example, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington. The only trouble was, with the exception of six, all of the names submitted were fake.

Unfortunately that was not an “isolated” incident. Similar fraud has been reported in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Colorado.

And don’t forget the wannabe Community Organizer in Chief Barack Obama:

ACORN attracted Barack Obama in his youthful community organizing days. Madeline Talbott hired him to train her staff — the very people who would later descend on Chicago’s banks as CRA shakedown artists. The Democratic nominee later funneled money to the group through the Woods Fund, on whose board he sat, and through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, ditto. Obama was not just sympathetic — he was an ACORN fellow traveler.

Watch Stanly Kurtz explain Obama’s ties to ACORN, and thus the financial crisis that is destroying the economy:

The possibility of a financial meltdown was foreseen in advance. Senator McCain co-sponsored legislation to impose bank-like regulation on Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac. That legislation, which could have prevented the current crisis, was killed by the Democrats.

As I wrote over the weekend. The Democrats tried to reward ACORN by providing the organization a portion of whatever profits were to be made in the rejected big bailout. That giveaway to the community organizers was only removed after Senator McCain was able to get Republicans a seat at the negotiations for the big bailout.

And Finally, as the Democrats point blame fingers at others over the rejection of the big bailout, don’t forget that the Democrats control Congress. As my RedState colleague, Mark Impomeni, explained there are more than enough Democrats in the House to pass any bill Speaker Pelosi really wants to pass. But she can’t get it done if she orders her Whip not to do his job.