The repercussions of the 2008-09 financial crisis are still with us today—as are misconceptions about who caused it. Phil Gramm and Jeb Hensarling deserve immense credit for dismantling the politically convenient myth that private greed and deregulation caused the 2008 crash in their op-ed "Alan Greenspan and the Financial Crisis" (July 21).

As Messrs. Gramm and Hensarling explain, the real culprit was central planning that forced government-sponsored enterprises to buy high-risk mortgages. When the house of cards collapsed, Washington tried to shift the blame to private capital through the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's partisan report. The document relied heavily on academic contributors, armchair intellectuals with zero industry experience, whose abstract theories distracted from the fundamental cause.

This narrative continues to shape policy debates, obscuring the role of government mandates in creating the subprime mortgage bubble. The authors argue that acknowledging the true origins is essential for preventing future crises, yet political incentives favor blaming Wall Street over Washington.