In my opinion the root cause of the current financial crisis is the Community Reinvestment Act. This was an affirmative action program that forced financial institutions to loan mortgage money to people who were unqualified. The government established a quota system on loans that financial systems had to comply with. The financial system tried to find out ways to deal with the bad loans. It seems likely to me that the regulators that Democrats blame for the crisis were simply ignoring the issue because they knew that banks had a problem with the bad loans. This crisis was manufactured by politicians, and it seems to me entirely appropriate that the government handle a "bail-out," since government caused the problem. I think it is revealing that Democrats want to funnel 20% of the potential profits from the bailout to ACORN, Obama's old radical organization. Here is an article about this issue:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html