Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I thank my friend from Florida for the opportunity to speak on this bill. And as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, I am grateful for the bipartisan leadership in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in bringing H.R. 1694 to the floor, for it is high time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be subject to the regimen of the Freedom of Information Act. This critical oversight tool is sorely past due for these government- sponsored agencies. Over the past four decades, we have seen the waste and largess exhibited by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac embedded in their everyday operations. And while they got their start during the height of the Depression and performed an able task of setting high standards for the liquidity for mortgage credit, they have long outlived their original charter. Oakley Hunter, the president and chairman of Fannie Mae back in the 1970s, described Fannie Mae as the world's largest floating crap game. Nothing has changed. {time} 1430 In the early 1980s, we found Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dominating, as they do today, 9 out of 10 mortgages in the United States, and yet they were highly unprofitable and highly suspect in their management. During that time, Senator William Proxmire led the charge in the United States Senate seeking answers about the enterprises' executive compensation. Flash-forward to the 1990s, we saw executive compensation at Fannie Mae run amok.…”