During the last two years of Bush's presidency both the Senate and House had Democratic majorities, and the policies enacted by that Congress led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The policy of forcing banks to give loans to people who could not afford them was pushed by Democrat Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd. The large number of bad loans was the start of the financial mess.
Many banks sold the bad loans to other investors mixed with some good loans, which magnified the problem. If the banks had never been forced to make the bad loans in the first place, the bailout would not have been needed.
Bush did warn these loans were bad for the economy, but he was told that he did not want to help poor people. He should have ignored the criticism and tried harder to stop Democrats from ruining the economy.
Obama continues to blame everything on George Bush.
But for two years, Obama had what most presidents never get.
He had Democrats controlling the Senate and the House.
Yet instead of quickly ending the Iraq war and closing Guantanamo, the Iraq war ended according to the Bush schedule, Guantanamo is still open and we are still fighting in Afghanistan.
Unemployment is still high, the economy is in poor shape, the Middle East is in chaos and one of our ambassadors has been murdered.
It is time to stop blaming Bush.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-01/news/bs-ed-bush-legacy-20130501_1_bad-loans-bush-library-guantanamo
