The normally placid Walter Russell Mead seethes with indignation over many Democrats’ and some Republicans’ opposition to lowering caps on the mortgages that can be guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.
The maximum for high-end markets like New York and Los Angeles is slated to drop from $729,750 to $625,500 on October 1. Mead correctly calls proposals to maintain the higher limits a “hare-brained scheme.” Lowering the limits is one way to put Freddie and Fannie on the road to extinction, where they belong, and to allow the emergence of a private market in mortgages that reflects economic realities. Government has no business supporting high-end housing prices.
But note that the beneficiaries of these high limits are the same people on whom Barack Obama and other Democrats want to impose higher taxes. Robbing from one pocket in order to stuff the other? As Mead points out, that’s not intelligent public policy.
