Barney Frank: “I do find a great inconsistency, not on the part of the gentleman from Louisiana, who has been completely consistent on…”

“I do find a great inconsistency, not on the part of the gentleman from Louisiana, who has been completely consistent on this issue for years, but first, we were being told that we should not interfere with the profitability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because we would be driving up the cost for middle-income homeowners. Now we have a much more serious attack on the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help middle-income homeowners. This says no more middle-income homeowners, only people below the median. We were told before that if we took $500 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's profits each year, we would inevitably be driving up the cost for middle-income borrowers. This would reduce Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's profits by 7, 8, 10 times that amount.”