There have been two administrations involved in all of this, and presumably there has been diversity of opinion within administrations, but it's hard not to conclude that ultimately decisions they made were based in part on the denial that there ever was a housing bubble. Prices going up was never a problem, just the prices coming down bit. To some degree
reinflating the bubble has always been part of the plan, or at best minimizing the losses. Remember, for quite some time this was all because of the CRA and subprime borrowers with darker than average complexions. While that was transparent bullshit when people were saying it, that doesn't mean that they didn't believe their bullshit.