Anyone with knowledge about money should have recognized long ago that those tempting, low adjustable-rate mortgages would eventually be trouble for many struggling families when interest rates began to rise.

The trouble was that the federal government — in part because of the Bush administration's desire to keep its hands off the lending industry — didn't raise a red flag along the way. It was only after an avalanche of potential foreclosures was imminent — as well as the detrimental impact the foreclosures would have on the national economy — that leaders in Washington began taking serious notice of the problem at hand.

Now a presidential advisory group is offering an approach that is long overdue but welcome nonetheless, in hopes of avoiding a major recession. Hopefully this election year will be an incentive for expeditious decision making regarding the proposals' most workable elements.

According to the advisory group's report, which was released Thursday, federal and state regulators should strengthen oversight of mortgage lenders; the states should follow strong, uniform licensing standards for mortgage brokers; there should be improvements by credit rating agencies; and there should be clearer disclosures and assessments of risks on investments.

"The objective here is to get the balance right," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who led the study group. "Regulation needs to catch up with innovation and help restore investor confidence but not go so far as to create new problems, make our markets less efficient or cut off credit to those who need it."

Paulson said the advisory group's work was not about "finding excuses and scapegoats," but it would have been a basis for more confidence if some of the culprits and bad decision making could have been exposed in the context of how the dangerous situation evolved.

However, any blame the government must shoulder must be shared by the people who allowed themselves to be lured into the tempting mortgage deals without thinking ahead to the fact that interest rates probably would eventually rise.

Paulson doesn't deserve any plaudits for delaying his public concern until the credit crisis was so deeply embedded. The Bush administration and Congress were sleeping at the proverbial switch.

Serious attention to the panel's proposals must not be delayed amid the national politicking under way.