Paulson Pushes Fannie and Freddie Bail-out
As I pointed out in my last post, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent a fortune buying influence. Now the government is planning to bail them out.
| Go to Home - Most Recent PostsJuly 21 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson suggested that U.S. lawmakers must pass his rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to avert a slide in confidence in U.S. financial markets.
International “investors need to know that we in the United States understand how important these institutions are to the capital markets,” Paulson said yesterday on CNN’s “Late Edition” program. He separately declined to reject Democrats’ calls for a second fiscal-stimulus package, as the effects of the first initiative wane.
Paulson’s remarks, on the eve of a two-day visit to Wall Street, indicate he’s raising the stakes for lawmakers debating his proposed rescue. He reiterated his optimism that Congress will enact the plan, including potentially unlimited government investment in the firms that account for almost half the $12 trillion U.S. home-loan market.