Short version:

1977 - Democratic President Jimmy Carter Passes "Community Reinvestment Act," or CRA, designed to encourage banks to reach out to low income communities by offering loans to minorities and the poor.

1995 - Democratic President Bill Clinton revises CRA by making banks meet a quota for a certain number of low income loans. He also increases punishment for banks that dont loan enough money to low income borrowers. This forces banks to write lots of loans that they would not otherwise have written, because the government is forcing them to.

1999 - Democratic President Bill Clinton signs and endorses the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act," or GLBA, designed to make banks profitable in good economic times, as well as poor economic times. The bill allows consumer banks (think checking accounts, savings accounts, etc..) to merge with insurance companies and investment companies, so they all can make money. BUT for a bank to qualify to be a part of the program, you had to have a high CRA score, meaning that you had to have a lot of loans written to low income people. The government was effectively telling banks that if they wanted to be allowed to make money off of the investments of the rich, that they had to also be lending money to the poor. Nice in theory, but look where it has gotten us. Now we are a nation with a bunch of people losing homes they never could afford, and a bunch of banks collapsing bc nobody can pay them back! Thanks Democrats!y

Note: Gramm Leach and Bliley are Republicans. This Republican sponsored bill was voted for in the majority by Republicans. It may be therefore disingenuous to characterize this Republican bill as a Democratic leadership failure given that it would not have existed without Republicans.