Jared Bernstein, who was Vice-President Biden's chief economist( even though he doesn't have an economics degree) is calling for temporary nationalized of Fannie and Freddie:
The only surefire solution is for Congress to temporarily assign control of the GSEs to the administration. This would mean passing legislation that temporarily put the administration in charge of the GSEs so they could implement the loan modifications their current regulator has resisted.It probably never occurred to "non-economist" Jared Bernstein that Moody's and S&P wouldn't be to happy with the U.S. federal government taking on the GSE debt load.
The government has already assumed temporary responsibility for financing the GSEs, but there’s a strong rationale for the government to actively change their mission as well. Taxpayers own 80 percent of these agencies, after all, and we’re in extremely unusual times in terms of housing finance: If Fannie and Freddie are going to be public agencies, they should be made to serve public ends.
