Obama to Mark Five-Year Anniversary of Financial Crisis from Rose Garden

On Monday, President Barack Obama will mark the five-year anniversary of the U.S. financial crisis by reportedly speaking from the White House Rose Garden to “highlight his administration’s response to it.”

The Hill reports Obama will make his remarks the day after the official anniversary, which began when Lehman Brothers collapsed five years ago. In response to the crisis, “the Bush administration pushed its Wall Street bailout plan through a reluctant Congress in late 2008 and launched a separate effort to prop up the nation’s automakers.”

Obama continued both programs, passed more stimulus programs, bailed out more Wall Street banks, and championed regulations like Dodd-Frank, which critics have argued hurts small community banks that are unable to afford the legal assistance needed to deal with the regulations. 

Obama will reportedly “pressure Congress to take greater steps to boost the middle class amid a lingering unemployment crisis” during Monday’s speech.

Obama may not be president had it not been for the financial crisis. During the 2008 presidential election, Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s response to the financial crisis, including suspending his campaign before the first presidential debate at Ole Miss and not being prepared for a meeting with President George W. Bush to discuss the bailout, may have led voters to believe a first-term senator from Illinois would be more prepared to be president than McCain, as McCain’s numbers plummeted after his response to the crisis.