Today, the House GOP took two whacks at FHA: one in a subcommittee hearing designed to parse pricing to promote private MI and, more fundamentally, the other in House Budget. There, Chairman Ryan (R-OH) pushed hard for fair-value accounting for FHA in concert with all other federal loan and guarantee programs. This won’t happen despite OMB sympathy to the fair-value concept, its cost is just too high for Democrat-desired programs to bear. But, it’s clear that all of these discussions keep FHA very much in play, along with Fannie and Freddie, as the real budget work begins in April.
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