Two Promising Starts towards Ending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
David C. John /
After more than a year of delay, the House Financial Services Committee is finally starting work on legislation that will hopefully end Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing finance giants that helped to make the housing crisis worse.
Both essentially failed in September 2008 and have been in a conservatorship under control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency since then. Many had hoped that Congress would address these two entities at the same time that it overhauled the financial regulatory system in the onerous Dodd–Frank legislation. But that did not happen.
The House will consider two approaches to dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They include a single comprehensive bill by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) that would shrink Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a reported package of eight separate bills sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) that would accomplish approximately the same thing. (more…)