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Boy, you really get a sense of what it must have been like trying to collect child support from this guy, don't you? What a domineering bully Rep. Joe Walsh is! I guess his idea of being a strong advocate is to get in someone's face and scream at them, and when that fails, he threatens to get them booted out. Via Think Progress:

Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is known for his anti-Obama rhetoric on cable television and his inability to pay his child support payments. But during a recent meeting with constituents in his Chicago-area suburban district, Walsh lost his cool when several attendees asked about why banks have so much power in government. At one point, Walsh even threatened to a eject a man who calmly asked Walsh about the revolving door of bank lobbyists infiltrating Congress and financial regulatory agencies.

Walsh at one point screamed, “Don’t blame the banks … this pisses me off!” After several constituents accurately pointed out that bank lobbyists occupy key positions within Congress, the SEC, and other oversight bodies that are supposed to supervise bank practices, Walsh began sticking his finger close to his constituent’s faces, yelling, “Quiet for a minute or I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The constituent, who had calmly asked his question before being cut-off midway through his sentence, obliged:

WALSH: Thats not the problem! The problem is you’ve got to be consistent. And I don't want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess was your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. [...] Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now! I am tired of hearing that crap! This pisses me off! Too many people don’t listen. [...]

WALSH: Quiet for a minute! Quiet for a minute!

CONSTITUENT: Joe, what did I say–

WALSH: Quiet for a minute or I’m going to ask you to leave. You need to listen, or I’m going to ask you to leave.

Wow, what an a**hole. (Whether of the lying or ignorant kind, I can't say.) But it was President George W. Bush's policies that kicked off the housing bubble:

From his earliest days in office, Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own homes with his conviction that markets do best when left alone. Bush pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minority groups, an initiative that dovetailed with both his ambition to expand Republican appeal and the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Bush chose to oversee them - an old school buddy - pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

So it's George W. Bush and good old crony capitalism at fault here. Someone should try to explain that to Joe Walsh - that is, if you can get a word in edgewise.