Tomorrow, the House will consider a massive housing bill that not only forces taxpayers to guarantee over $300 billion in new home loans for troubled borrowers, but also includes an unprecedented bailout for the trillion dollar mortgage giant Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This package is being rushed to the floor without having any hearings or markups on the matter, and will likely come up under a rule that limits debate and precludes amendments.

Many opposed the core housing bill because it would bailout big banks that made risky bets in housing by forcing 95 percent of Americans (those who rent, own their own homes outright, or are on time with their mortgages) to bail out the other 5 percent (those who are near or in foreclosure). The bill now also contains $4 billion in new CDBG spending for local communities to buy foreclosed properties, which would do nothing to help struggling homeowners, as well as imposes a backdoor home mortgage tax to fund a housing slush fund for leftist housing activist groups, like ACORN and La Raza.

Most troubling, though, is a GSE bailout that could put taxpayers on the hook for as much as $5 trillion dollars worth of risk – an amount larger than the economy of every single country in the world except the United States or China. The bailout would give Fannie and Freddie an unlimited line of credit from the U.S. Treasury and force the taxpayer to buy equity in the companies to help further prop up their stock prices. In the worst case scenario of these companies completely failing, taxpayers would see the $9.5 trillion national debt explode by 50 percent in an instant. Though a complete implosion is unlikely, all of the so-called experts have said the same thing about every other aspect of the current housing market turmoil. In essence, we are now being asked to allow the GSEs to privatize their profits but socialize their losses.

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