Republicans economic agenda, included massive unpaid tax cuts for the rich. Two unpaid wars and a doctrine of no regulation no supervision of wall street. It is this radical agenda that precipitated the financial meltdown and shattered our economy. How bad was it . On the night of thursday, september 18th 2008, the secretary of the treasury came to the capital for an emergency meeting with congressional leaders to inform us of the severity of the meltdown. When i asked the chairman of the fed, at the time ben bernanke what he thought of what the treasury secretary was telling us . He told the leaders, if we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by monday. This was thursday evening. Thats where we were, september 18th 2008. In order to stop the meltdown of americas financial institutions, it was necessary for us to pass the troubled assets release program tarp supported largely by democrats and later we enacted historic consumer wall street reforms with dodd frank regulati