Why have they done this? Why would they do such a thing? Why would they commit such an egregious offense against their own people, when they could have very easily NOT done it, and had the near-unanimous support of the American electorate in standing up to the Bush plan and choosing some other completely mainstream alternative?

You already know the answer. It's because they do not serve the American people. They serve a very small yet brutally powerful ruling class. And this elite wanted the Bush-Obama extortion plan, and no other, to make sure their power and privilege were not unduly threatened by the debacle that their own monstrous greed and fraud have made.