White House Quietly Working Behind the Scenes on GSE Reform
by Donna Borak
While the Obama administration has publicly kept its distance from the housing finance reform debate during the past two years, it has been privately working in recent months to help move a bill forward. The administration has often been criticized for its conspicuous absence from the reform debate, with some arguing it’s clear the issue is not a top priority for the White House. But the administration has been reluctant to engage on the issue openly, fearing that would provoke Republican opposition to any measure it supports. Instead, it has discreetly provided advice to lawmakers working on a bipartisan approach in the Senate. “There’s a lot of negotiating under way,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. “Lots of talk about how to rewrite this and rewrite that, and there’s a lot of work by the administration,” which has been “very involved trying to structure something that’s ready to go.
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