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You are correct that the Act was actually passed under Carter, however, it was the Clinton administration & his Attny Gen that applied the pressure to banks, etc.

According to Wikipedia (which I don’t like to use, but it was easly) In 1995, the GSE’s like Fannie Mae began receiving government tax incentives for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. Thus began the involvement of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with the subprime market.[103] In 1996, HUD set a goal for Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac that at least 42% of the mortgages they purchase be issued to borrowers whose household income was below the median in their area. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005.[104] From 2002 to 2006, as the U.S. subprime market grew 292% over previous years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined purchases of subprime securities rose from $38 billion to around $175 billion per year before dropping to $90 billion per year, which included $350 billion of Alt-A securities. Fanny Mae had stopped buying Alt-A products in the early 1990’s because of the high risk of default. By 2008, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned, either directly or through mortgage pools they sponsored, $5.1 trillion in residential mortgages, about half the total U.S. mortgage market.[105] The GSE have always been highly leveraged, their net worth as of 30 June 2008 being a mere US$114 billion.[106] When concerns arose in September 2008 regarding the ability of the GSE to make good on their guarantees, the Federal government was forced to place the companies into a conservatorship, effectively nationalizing them at the taxpayers’ expense.[107][108]

The Glass-Steagall Act was enacted after the Great Depression. It separated commercial banks and investment banks, in part to avoid potential conflicts of interest between the lending activities of the former and rating activities of the latter. Economist Joseph Stiglitz criticized the repeal of the Act. He called its repeal the “culmination of a $300 million lobbying effort by the banking and financial services industries...spearheaded in Congress by Senator Phil Gramm.” He believes it contributed to this crisis because the risk-taking culture of investment banking dominated the more conservative commercial banking culture, leading to increased levels of risk-taking and leverage during the boom period.[109] The Federal government bailout of thrifts during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s may have encouraged other lenders to make risky loans, and thus given rise to moral hazard.[110][35]

Conservatives have also debated the possible effects of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), with detractors claiming that the Act encouraged lending to uncreditworthy borrowers,[111][112][113][114] and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.[115][116][117][118] Detractors also claim that amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s, raised the amount of mortgages issued to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers, and allowed the securitization of CRA-regulated mortgages, even though a fair number of them were subprime.[119][120]

Both Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair have stated their belief that the CRA was not to blame for the crisis.[121]

Central banks manage monetary policy and may target the rate of inflation. They have some authority over commercial banks and possibly other financial institutions. They are less concerned with avoiding asset price bubbles, such as the housing bubble and dot-com bubble. Central banks have generally chosen to react after such bubbles burst so as to minimize collateral damage to the economy, rather than trying to prevent or stop the bubble itself. This is because identifying an asset bubble and determining the proper monetary policy to deflate it are matters of debate among economists.[123][124]

Some market observers have been concerned that Federal Reserve actions could give rise to moral hazard.[35] A Government Accountability Office critic said that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s rescue of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 would encourage large financial institutions to believe that the Federal Reserve would intervene on their behalf if risky loans went sour because they were “too big to fail.”[125]

As someone who applied for & obtained 3 mortgages in the 80s, I was told that I needed pmi if I put down less than 20%. No one offered me ARMS, no money down, subsidized mtgs., etc.

I think to blame this on Reagan is a true disservice and a further revision of history.