Clinton Wants a Greater Role For Fannie Mae

The New York Sun reports:

Mrs. Clinton laid out a multi-pronged program aimed at softening the blow of the mortgage lending crisis, calling for a $1 billion federal fund to help states assist borrowers; an increase in disclosure requirements for mortgage brokers, including a statement on the linkage between their compensation and mortgage rates and fees; stronger licensing requirements and a federal registration requirement; the elimination of prepayment penalties; and the expansion of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's efforts to prevent foreclosures.

"We need to put an end to fly-by-night mortgage brokers peddling loans to unqualified applicants based on inflated appraisals," Mrs. Clinton said. "We need to help those facing the pain of foreclosure. We need to secure the marketplace and put reforms in place now."

New Hampshire, whose voter-rich southern tier is dotted with former residents of Massachusetts in search of lower taxes and cheaper housing, is particularly vulnerable to variations in the housing and lending markets. Mrs. Clinton delivered yesterday's address at a recently built school on Eastgate Road, where some 16 so-called McMansions have risen during the housing boom of the last five years.

One of the houses in the development has already been foreclosed upon, another recently sold for almost half its construction price, and two are for sale, resident Wayne Jean said. "What does that say?" he asked. "There are thousands of people like" Ms. Schofield, he added. "I think this is worse than the meltdown of '91 to '92. What Clinton is saying is spot-on."

A spokesman for Ameriquest, Chris Orlando, said, "When our customers have difficulty making their mortgage payments, we work hard to keep them in their homes as we have done with the Schofields for more than two years."

Two metropolitan areas in New Hampshire, Greater Manchester and Rockingham County on the seacoast, are in the top third of the nation for subprime past due loans, a professor of management at the University of New Hampshire, Ross Gittell, said.

While the overall rate of delinquency is still low, the impact of subprime past due loans and foreclosures is beginning to have an impact, he said. "I'm not sure if it's going to be the no. 1 issue above terrorism and the war in Iraq, but this issue isn't going away. … It's going to continue to disintegrate through the primary," he added.

Mrs. Clinton's competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination took issue with the timing and substance of her proposal, as well as her ability to execute it. John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina who supports a federal law that would "prohibit abusive lending practices," said in a statement that he was "the first candidate in this race to offer a real plan to punish predatory lenders and protect homeowners." Senator Dodd of Connecticut, the chairman of the banking committee, suggested in a statement that Mrs. Clinton was getting in on an issue that he "has already taken leadership on." He added: "Addressing the crisis will require more than rhetoric on the campaign trail."

Mrs. Clinton's call for stepped up involvement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also drew criticism from the right. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are part of the problem, they're not part of the solution," the director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Housing and Financial Markets and the former assistant secretary for housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, John Weicher, said. "They are very heavy purchasers of subprime mortgage-backed securities. … They're not helping people get in other mortgages, they're helping people get into subprime mortgages."

Fannie Mae really knows how to buy politicians.