Excuse me!
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
New York Times By STEPHEN LABATON Published: September 11, 2003 The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. ... ... Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing. ''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'' Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
No vetos of the budget, requests for funding for new big government programs, tax cuts without offsets in spending, Iraq War with no means to pay for it, allowing leverage limits to be raised beyond any level of safety which got us Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG and a host of other issues, allowing the Democrats to get away with not further regulating Fannie and Freddie, not pushing to repeael CRA, not enforcing the laws on immigration or preventing illegals from buying houses, etc..