Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[bradford86]

The GSEs Have Been Profitable Since 2012. Maybe It’s Time to End the Conservatorships?
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Fannie Mae CEO Priscilla Almodovar set tongues wagging recently when she hinted that maybe the time has come to end the 15-year old conservatorships of the government-sponsored enterprises.

“Conservatorship was never meant to be permanent, right?” she asked rhetorically in an interview with Bloomberg. She also summarized the argument for the GSEs’ release, noting, “Someone somewhere has not taken a victory lap for the work that has been done to rehabilitate the enterprises.”

This was precisely the sort of public commentary that former Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart recently told Inside Mortgage Finance the GSEs should be engaging in. He said that, despite the edict against lobbying by the GSEs, as long as they don’t ask for specific votes, it’s fine for them to educate Congress and the public about issues like the conservatorship.

Almodovar was careful not to cross the forbidden line into outright lobbying, noting that her job is to manage the company and leave the issue of the conservatorships “for policymakers to decide.”