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GM is a private corporation, too.

But, before we get to that chapter, -- Wow! Do you even bother to do any research, or do you just parrot what you read on some other candidate’s website? -- I'm sure you know that Fannie and Freddie have always cost taxpayers huge amounts of money, thus making every dollar FredFan spends a dollar that's essentially made possible because of federal unpriced benefits to GSEs.

In 1996, for example, the CBO said that federal unpriced benefits to GSEs (such as exemptions from state and local income taxes and, more importantly, use of the federal government's credit standing without paying a fee for that privilege) amounted to almost $7 billion annually. Again, note that that was in 1996 dollars.

So, yes, I should have been more clear that Gingrich was not paid with direct taxpayer funds. He was just paid with money earned by a GSE that cost the taxpayers billions a year -- even before the 2008 conservatorship -- and which GSE would have gone out of business without all that costly free stuff from the taxpayers to float its operating funds.

So if we, the taxpayers, were all that was keeping the GSEs from insolvency, whether our cold, hard cash actually was used to pay Gingrich millions to "build bridges to Republicans on Capitol Hill" is a distinction without a difference, in my view. That said, I agree with you that I could have made my point more clearly.

Finally, let's not forget that it was the already costly free stuff -- in particular, the cost-free use of the federal government's credit standing -- that helped lead to this horrendous taxpayer hit:

Fannie, Freddie execs score $100 million payday:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show. )