GOP gets cold feet on ending bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

[unhappycamper]

Fannie Mae mortgage specialists help homeowners at the new Fannie Mae Help Mortgage offices in Culver City, Calif., on Nov. 10.


GOP gets cold feet on ending bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
By Gail Russell Chaddock, Staff writer / December 29, 2010


Washington - A new drop in the housing market is giving Republicans pause on plans to privatize home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae.

Throughout the financial reform debate in 2010, Republicans argued that majority Democrats should include Fannie and Freddie in the discussions, since the vast public-private entities securitized the mortgages that were at the epicenter of the crisis. Republicans pledged to end the taxpayer bailout of Fannie and Freddie.

With Republicans taking control of the House next year, privatizing Fannie and Freddie is still a top priority, but the timetable is slipping. Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released Tuesday, showed that home prices fell in all 20 metro areas surveyed, wiping out nearly all the gains from the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers, which expired on April 30.

The Republican set to chair a key finance panel says that the risk of a new shock to fragile housing markets is forcing a delay of at least a year.

“We are not interested in pulling the plug immediately on Fannie and Freddie,” says Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R) of Texas, the incoming chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Finance Committee. “We need a more measured approach that will faze them out over a period of time, given the impact on the markets.”

[Richardo]

1. "faze them out"?

Poor editing, or an inadvertent dollop of the truth?

[Arkana]

2. Oh really now?

The same Fannie and Freddie they fucking RAILED ABOUT during the campaign? The one that was used to beat Barney Frank over the head with? That Fannie and Freddie?

Fuck the Republicans and their staggering hypocrisy.

[dkf]

3. Just like Obama on tax cuts.

You don't have to like it in order to realize the side impacts could be bad.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Well, this is what establishment Republicons are saying now

Wait till they have to sell the idea to the tea partiers who are coming to Congress next week.