By Andy Ostmeyer
Globe Metro Editor
I felt helpless in the first days of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacle, but now Uncle Sam will send me to their rescue. Thank you, President Bush and members of Congress. The new roof for my house can wait if my tax dollars are needed to bailout these institutions that are “too big to fail.”
My “housing crisis” is less important than yours.
It’s crucial that you and I be there when institutions “too big to fail” do in fact start to crumble so that we send the message to them and others that the unwise rules-don’t-apply-to-me behavior poses no risk that taxpayers won’t absorb.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages — almost half of the nation’s total. That’s why everyone says they are “too big too fail,” and that’s why President Bush has the Treasury Department scrambling to throw out some of the old rules in order to solve this crisis.
Or could there be another reason that politicians won’t let these institutions fail?
When you think about how big these two entities are, don’t overlook the fact that, according to Capital Eye, a publication of the Center for Responsive Politics, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the No. 1 and No. 3 contributors in the mortgage banking industry. The Mortgage Bankers Association is second.
Since their creation by the federal government, these organizations have not been bound by the same rules as other investment banks, which explains the trouble they are in today, and which makes me wonder if throwing out more rules in order to rescue them is just aggravating the real problem.
Keeping its unique set of rules explains why the former Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) has, since 1990, given $9.8 million to members of Congress, with $4.2 million of that going to Democrats, who claim to always be looking out for the little guy, and $5.6 million of that going to Republicans, who claim all they want is a fair and level playing field and then let the market do its work.
U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut, tops the list of Freddie Mac’s recipients, both collectively and in this election cycle. So far in this 2008 cycle he has received $28,800; overall he has received more than $55,000.
Barack Obama is No. 2 this year ($17,700); Hillary Clinton is third ($17,600); and John McCain is seventh ($8,100) among members of Congress who have taken Freddie Mac money.
In the past 18 years, U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., has taken $19,000 from Freddie Mac and U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has taken $11,000.
Freddie Mac, in fact, is one of the 100 biggest donors in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Fannie Mae hasn’t been a big player historically, but according to Capital Eye, it has given nearly $1 million in the current election cycle.
That’s what they really mean by “too big to fail.”
A recent story in The New York Times (July 13) notes that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were not subject to the same financial standards as other banks, were exempt from state and local taxes, had lower capital requirements than other banks, and so on and so on. And despite this they failed? Maybe because of this they failed.
The Times goes on to explain that the two companies hired the family and friends of politicians, spent millions on lobbying and built up with Washington a “mutually beneficial co-dependency.”
There’s the lesson: Asking legislators for special favors and lobbying them to write special rules for their company is the first step to insulating them from reality. Maybe that is where this housing crisis began.
Address correspondence to Andy Ostmeyer, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, Mo. 64802 or e-mail aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com.
