Where Was Senator Dodd?

Here, read this:

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Where was Sen. Dodd?

BY AL HUBBARD AND NOAM NEUSNER Taxpayers face a tab of $200 bil­lion for a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the formerly semi-autonomous mortgage finance clearinghouses. And Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has the gall to ask in a Bloomberg Television interview: “I have a lot of questions about where was the administration over the last eight years.” We will save Sen. Dodd some trou­ble. Here is what we saw firsthand at the White House from late 2002 through 2007: Starting in 2002, White House and Treasury Department economic-policy staffers, with sup­port from then-Chief of Staff Andy Card, began to press for meaningful reforms of Fannie, Freddie and other government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). The crux of their concern: In­vestors believed the GSEs were gov­ernment-backed, so shouldn’t the GSEs also be subject to meaningful government supervision? This was not the first time a White House had tried to confront this is­sue. During the Clinton years, Trea­sury Secretary Larry Summers and Treasury official Gary Gensler spoke out on the issue of Fannie and Fred­die’s investment portfolios, which had begun to resemble hedge funds with risky holdings. Nor were others silent. Then-Federal Reserve Chair­man Alan Greenspan regularly warned about the risks posed by Fan­nie and Freddie’s holdings. President Bush was receptive to reform. He withheld nominees for Fannie’s and Freddie’s boards, a presidential privilege. It would have been valuable politically to use such positions to reward supporters, but the president put good policy above good politics. In subsequent years, officials at Treasury and the Council of Eco­nomic Advisers (especially chairmen Greg Mankiw and Harvey Rosen) pressed to require Fannie and Fred­die to submit to regulations of the Se­curities and Exchange Commission; to adopt financial accounting stan­dards; to follow bank standards for capital requirements; to shrink their portfolios of assets from risky levels; and to empower regulators such as the Office of Federal Housing Over­sight to monitor the firms. The administration did not accept half-measures. In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then-chairman of the House Financial Services Commit­tee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie’s lob­byists set out to weaken it. The bill was rendered so toothless that Card called Oxley the night before markup and promised to oppose it. Oxley pulled the bill instead. During this period, Sen. Richard Shelby led a small group of legisla­tors favoring reform, including fel­low Republican Sens. John Sununu, Chuck Hagel and Elizabeth Dole. Meanwhile, Dodd, who along with Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were the top four recipients of Fannie and Freddie campaign con­tributions from 1988 to 2008, actively opposed such measures and further weakened existing regulation. The president’s budget proposals reflected the nature of the challenge. Note the following passage from the 2005 budget: Fannie, Freddie and other GSEs “are highly leveraged, holding much less capital in relation to their assets than similarly sized fi­nancial institutions. ... A misjudg­ment or unexpected economic event could quickly deplete this capital, po­tentially making it difficult for a GSE to meet its debt obligations. Given the very large size of each enter­prise, even a small mistake by a GSE could have consequences throughout the economy.” That passage was published in February 2004. Sen. Dodd can find it on Page 82 of the budget’s Analytical Perspectives. The administration not only identi­fied the problem, it recommended a solution. In June 2004, then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Samuel Bodman said: “We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision.” Bush got involved in the effort per­sonally, speaking out for the cause of reform: “Congress needs to pass leg­islation strengthening the independ­ent regulator of government-spon­sored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, so we can keep them focused on the mission to ex­pand home ownership,” he said in December. He even mentioned GSE reform in this year’s State of the Union address. How did Fannie and Freddie counter such efforts? They flooded Washington with lobbying dollars, doled out tens of thousands in politi­cal contributions and put offices in key congressional districts. Not surprisingly, these efforts worked. Leaders in Congress did not just balk at proposals to rein in Fan­nie and Freddie. They mocked the proposals as unserious and unneces­sary. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. said this on Sept. 11, 2003: “We see enti­ties that are fundamentally sound fi­nancially. ... And even if there were a problem, the federal government doesn’t bail them out.” As recently as last summer, when housing prices clearly had peaked and the mortgage market had started to seize up, Dodd called on Bush to “immediately reconsider his ill-ad­vised” reform proposals. Frank, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the presi­dent’s suggestion for a strong, inde­pendent regulator of Fannie and Freddie was “inane.” Sen. Dodd wonders what the Bush administration did to address the risks of Fannie and Freddie. Now, he knows. The real question is: Where was he? Al Hubbard was director of the Na­tional Economic Council and assis­tant to the president from 2005-07. Noam Neusner was a speechwriter and communications director in the Bush administration from 2002-05. They wrote this for The Washington Post, where it first appeared.