The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress (except for the first 2 years of Bush's term) from 1994 to 2008. The President can propose policy all he wants but in the end it is Congress that makes the laws and Congress that controls the purse strings.

No matter how much the Republicans want to pretend otherwise, they were the party that predominantly held the power in Congress during the "deregulation" years that led up to this recession, both during the Clinton and Bush presidencies. And now this same party wants to somehow fix the problem by continuing to do the same things that caused the problem in the first place?