Obama Says It is Time to Wind Down Fannie and Freddie
Obama Says It is Time to Wind Down Fannie and Freddie
President Barack Obama cited an AS/COA and Partnership for a New American Economy study on immigrants and the housing market during his address in Phoenix, Arizona.
Almost five years after taxpayers bailed out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, President Obama said on Tuesday that it's time for private investors to take a bigger role in the mortgage market.
Fannie and Freddie collapsed in 2008 before being bailed out with almost $200 billion in taxpayer funds.
But with the nation's real estate market on the mend, Obama said in an address in Phoenix on home ownership that it is time to wind down the two companies and make clear that the days of a guaranteed government bailout are over....
The president also attempted to tie the fate of the housing market to Congress passing an overhaul of the country's immigration laws, a second-term legislative priority for the White House that is facing tough opposition in the Republican-controlled House. He noted a recent study by the pro-immigration group Americas Society/Council of the Americas that shows immigrants have added $ 3.7 trillion in housing wealth.
"It's pretty simple: When more people buy homes, and play by the rules, home values go up for everybody," Obama said.
Obama chose Phoenix — the epicenter of the U.S. housing bust that wiped out $7 trillion in homeowner equity — to make the next speech in his ongoing summer road tour in which he has been spotlighting his ideas for creating jobs and promoting growth, while hammering Republicans for not working with him to help bolster a still lackluster economy.
The speech on Tuesday is a bookend to the remarks he made in Phoenix shortly after taking office in 2009 as the real estate market crumbled....
