Hillary Blames Foreclosures “Squarely on the Republicans”

Housing-related issues received a rare slice of attention in the presidential race this weekend, with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton accusing her GOP rivals of being the sole guilty party behind the post-2008 foreclosure activity.

“This foreclosure crisis, nine million people lost their jobs in the Great Recession, and five million homes were lost,” said Clinton at an appearance in a New Haven doughnut shop, according to a report in The Hill. “And I put the responsibility squarely on the Republicans. And I don’t say that to be partisan. I say it because, you know, during those eight years there were a lot of things that could be done that were not done to try to help people.”

Clinton’s made no mention of her financial services industry benefactors playing any role in the economic miasma of the recent past, and her comments stood in stark contrast to remarks made by her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who put the blame for the 2008 crisis primarily on Wall Street institutions and mortgage lenders. Clinton, however, was vague in offering any specifics on how she would encourage economic prosperity and a reanimation of the troubled patches of the housing sector.

“It’s going to take everybody working to turn that around and to get back to where we’re really trying to take care of people in the economy, in the government, and that’s what we should be doing, that’s who we are,” Clinton said.