Last month, President Barack Obama signed off on a spending package that kicks the can down the road with regard to government-sponsored enterprise reform. The 2016 Omnibus Spending Act, which limits the sale or liquidation of preferred stock from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, leaves the enterprises woefully undercapitalized.
This maneuver may be a short-term boon for the U.S. Treasury Department, which gets to keep all of the earnings of government-sponsored enterprise (GSEs) under the August 2012 profit sweep, but it prolongs an ongoing nightmare for taxpayers, who are left overexposed to future risk. Moreover, the provisions of the spending act reinforce a government policy whose sheer lawlessness represents an affront to the constitutional order.
