"Then why did you let them get into this mess?"

How do you think we got into this financial mess in the first place?

The very people who got us into this mess in the first place.

Isn't that what got us into this mess to begin with?

That's how we got into this mess in the first place.

"It seems to me working together is what got us into this mess."

It took us a long time to get into this mess.

I don't even know how we got into this mess.

And yet it is bad federal law that got us into this mess.

"That's the same kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place!"