GOP Bill Would End Backing of Freddie, Fannie

A group of Republican lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday to end government backing of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Friday.

Arizona Sen. John McCain and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Budget Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., co-sponsored legislation that would wind down the government’s role in two years.

Hatch said it’s time to take Fannie and Freddie “off government life-support.”

“This has to change,” Hatch said Thursday. “The American people are fed up. They’re sick of it.”

McCain said the two companies should be put on a level playing field with other mortgage lenders that the government isn’t propping up.

“The time has come to require them to stand on their own two feet,” McCain said.

The new legislation, which Bachus said he would schedule for a hearing soon, also would require increasingly higher down payments for mortgages, starting with 5 percent down in the first year the measure became law and rising to 10 percent in the third year to “increase the quality of all loans.”