From what I've read, he majority of the items Renos cited are a result of the burst of the housing bubble, which was related to the credit crisis. " Big banks bought up a lot of sub-prime mortgages, then bundled them into portfolios that could be sold downstream as reliably income-producing assets. Thus mortgage debt was “securitized,” made into something hedge funds and private equity firms, and even mutual funds, could buy into as an investment, not as a side bet. When the housing market flattened out, that is, when prices and construction began to fall and when foreclosure rates began to rise —even with interest rates relatively steady—this mortgage debt suddenly looked dubious. " The article I read asks "why did the investment in sub-prime mortgages take place, with such ill effects on the housing market??" The answer is, Bush's tax cuts. http://hnn.us/articles/41985.html

Of course, once the housing bubble burst, all the associated industries came down with it which resulted in the rise of unemployment. When people aren't fixing up homes and selling them, the people that put in granite countertops, do landscaping, put in new wood floors, and all the other myriad of home building trades lose their jobs. Stores that sell the home building products sell less; truckers are moving less goods. Its a domino effect. Contributing to all this was the rise in oil prices. In the case of oil there are several reasons for higher prices, including the high level of demand from Asia, the geopolitical risks of dependence on Iran and the physical loss of production in Iraq.

This all happened over the course of years. To try to blame it on a 2006 Democratic congress is ludicrous. The big question, is how are we going to get the country out of this mess? What we should be discussing are the plans McCain, Clinton and Obama are proposing.