At an event in Lansing, Michigan Monday, Rick Santorum put forth an alternate theory for the cause of the financial crisis: that rising gas prices caused Americans to default on their mortgages, leading to the wave of foreclosures that sparked Wall Street’s near collapse in the fall of 2008.
“We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices,” Santorum said to a hotel ballroom of supporters. “The bubble burst in housing because people couldn’t pay their mortgages because of $4 a gallon gasoline.”
As BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller points out, the extensive report on the causes of the crisis by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission made no mention of gas, gasoline, or energy as triggering the crisis.
