Republicans had better return Fannie and Freddie to safe and sound banking

Is it too suspicious to worry that the Republicans who have just taken over the U.S. House of Representatives already are calculating how to tiptoe around real financial reform in hopes of bribes from home-loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

After all, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac managed to buy off both Republican Newt Gingrich and Democrat Rahm Emanuel, and virtually every member of the House and Senate banking committees. Perhaps the new members could find themselves willing to set aside promises of honest banking. There's already evidence they're going wobbly.

It had better not happen. Any member of Congress who takes one cent in campaign money from any Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac officer should be sent to prison for life. It's time Congress insisted on safe and sound banking practices to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's time to take a close look at the books of those two lenders, and then turn them loose, to succeed or fail on their own.

Kellerman suicide. It's also time for Congress to investigate why Freddie Mac chief financial officer David Kellerman killed himself in April 2009. Who put the pressure on him to cover up the risks of making hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans? Ask Congressman Barney Frank first.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Larry Sheldon]

They might ponder how many of us they can tiptoe around next election cycle.

[Neo]

The takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the government should, I repeat should, have ended the lobbying gravy train from these two former GSEs.