Stealing Fannie and Freddie
Jonathan R. Macey
Yale Law School
Logan Beirne
Yale Law School
April 27, 2014
“The housing market accounts for nearly 20 percent of the American economy, so it is critical that we have a strong and stable housing finance system that is built to last,” declares the Senate Banking Committee Leaders’ Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Draft. The proposed legislation’s first step towards this laudable goal, however, is to liquidate the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) – in defiance of the rule of law. This paper by jonathan R. Macey and Logan Beirne analyzes the current House and Senate housing finance reform proposals and faults their modes of liquidation for departing from legal norms, thereby harming investors and creditors, taxpayers, and the broader economy.
Politicians are running rough-shod over the rule of law as they seek to rob private citizens of their assets to achieve their own amorphous political objectives. If we were speaking of some banana republic, this would be par for the course – but this is unfolding in the United States today.
“The housing market accounts for nearly 20 percent of the American economy, so it is critical that we have a strong and stable housing finance system that is built to last,” declares the Senate Banking Committee Leaders’ Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Draft. The proposed legislation’s first step towards this laudable goal, however, is to liquidate the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) – in defiance of the rule of law. This paper analyzes the current House and Senate housing finance reform proposals and faults their modes of liquidation for departing from legal norms, thereby harming investors and creditors, taxpayers, and the broader economy.
Under proposals before Congress, virtually everyone loses. First, Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) and Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC)’s shareholders’ property rights are violated. Second, taxpayers face the potential burden of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s trillions in liabilities without dispensing via the orderly and known processes of a traditional bankruptcy proceeding or keeping the debts segregated as the now-profitable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seek to pay them down. Finally, the rule of law is subverted, thereby making lending and business in general a riskier proposition when the country and global economy are left to the political whims of the federal government.
