It's very unpopular to say this but I think it's important not to make assumptions about bankers' actions before the crisis. Many people and bankers expected house prices to continue appreciating and made decisions based on that assumption:
https://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/Rethinking-Finan...
Also, taxpayers made a profit on the bank bailouts. The bailouts that cost taxpayers a lot money were of GM and Chrysler: https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chr... Wikipedia has details on TARP, the ProPublica page I usually cite for the return on bank bailouts is down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program