A government crusade in the 1990s set the stage for the mortgage and housing bubble. As detailed in previous columns, Congress passed laws and Presidents took actions to make cheap money available to unqualified borrowers, and punished banks that didn’t comply. The dawning of the 2000s decade saw the federal housing locomotive roaring down the track, with the liberals in Congress pouring on the coal. Social-engineering regulators had already pushed banks to lend almost $1 trillion for mortgages to low-income clients and inner-city projects, mostly funneling the money through HUD to questionable leftist “community groups” like ACORN. The goal of...