3/27/2019

TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The White House formally weighed in on the housing finance reform debate on Wednesday [3-27-19] with President Donald Trump directing Treasury to come up with a plan to end the government’s decade-long control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two companies at the heart of the nation’s mortgage-finance industry. Trump issued a presidential memo as Congress, fearing unilateral action by his administration, ramps up its own efforts to overhaul the system. Yet the memo stopped short of lawmakers‘ biggest concern — that the administration would quickly move to recapitalize and release Fannie and Freddie without substantively changing the way they operate…The memo lists three conditions for ending conservatorship, which began when the government seized Fannie and Freddie during the housing crisis to prevent their collapse. The two companies would have to hold more capital; the government would have to be ‘compensated for the explicit and implicit guarantees provided by it to the companies or any successor entities in the form of an ongoing payment’; their portfolios would have to be reduced and their activities ‘restricted to their core statutory mission.’”

Katy O’Donnell, “Trump directs agencies to develop plans to overhaul housing finance,” Politico, March 27, 2019 6:01 pm