The Hill is reporting that the Senate just passed the 2008 Fannie & Freddie Prop Up bill (72-13). The monster housing bill will now go to the White House for W’s Johnny Hancock. For what it’s worth, all 13 ’no’ votes were GOP-ers. Senator DeMint (R-SC) had delayed the bill over objections to F & F lobby rights, but in the end the R’s struck a deal with the Dems and passed it.
The bill will allow re-fi’s of up to $300 billion in distressed mortgages, give tax breaks galore in order to help the market, tighten future oversight of F & F – and (this is the real kicker) give the Treasury temporary authority to approve an unlimited line of credit for F & F. Now isn’t that sweet?! We, the taxpayers, are going to foot the bill for a bottomless pile of cash for two government-sponsored enterprises being run by people of questionable judgment.
If you wish to see this in a positive light, just read the first paragraph of today’s Washington Post story which says, “In a rare weekend session, the Senate today ended months of legislative wrangling and gave final approval to a sprawling housing bill that seeks to halt the steepest slide in home prices in a generation, rescue hundreds of thousands of families from foreclosure and restore confidence in the nation’s largest mortgage finance firms.”
(GAG!!)
Why-oh-why is it the job of Congress to interfere with the natural forces of the market, rescue people from foreclosure because they financed over-priced houses with adjusable-rate mortgages they now cannot afford, and restore confidence in two companies that probably deserve to fail due to poor management? Where in the Constitution does it say that the State is responsible for protecting its citizens from the natural consequences of their own poor judgment?!!
The Nanny State gets fatter while our dependence upon her grows…
