How we arrived at a $700 billion government economic bailout according to Mr. Obvious Lee. Changes that Pres Clinton made to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA – google it) in 1995 got the ball rolling. Bush and McCain both tried to intervene with legislation to better monitor Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but were shot down by the Dems (with support from Obama and Barney Frank). The CRA rules changes, during a time when many banks were merging and needed to pass the CRA assess process to do so, substantially increased the number and aggregate amount of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans, some of which were “risky mortgages.”