GOP financial chairman blasts delay of Fannie, Freddie reform plan

House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) is accusing the administration of dragging its feet on reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after the White House missed a Jan. 31 deadline for its report on housing finance reform.

Bachus, whose committee will play a key role in the housing overhaul, said the delay is proof the administration “cannot make any tough choices required to protect taxpayers and end the bailout of Fannie and Freddie.”

“Taxpayers do not need more empty promises for reform, they need a real plan to stop the administration and Treasury Department from throwing more taxpayer dollars down the Fannie and Freddie rathole,” he added Monday.

The administration originally was supposed to release by Jan. 31 its recommendations for how to reform the housing finance system in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that drove the economic recession. However, the deadline has come and gone, and reports indicate that it may be mid-February before the findings see the light of day.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have identified reforming Fannie and Freddie as one of their top priorities in the new Congress, and Bachus’s committee has scheduled three hearings in the next two months on the matter. Republicans are pushing for a plan that removes the mortgage titans from government control and makes them wholly private entities over the next several years.

Since Fannie and Freddie entered a government conservatorship, the federal government has spent nearly $150 billion supporting them.