Paulson and Geithner Testify on Regulation and Housing

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Underlying the crisis was the housing bubble, and it is clear that several policy decisions shaped the home mortgage market. Excesses in that market eventually led to a significant decline in home prices and a surge of loan defaults which caused tremendous losses in the financial system, triggered a contraction of credit, and put many Americans — quite literally — out on the street. These excesses were driven in large part by housing policy. From 1994 to 2006, home ownership soared from an already spectacular 64 percent of U.S. households to a staggering 69 percent due to the combined weight of a number of government policies and programs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) comprised a central part of U.S. housing policy. The GSEs operated under an inherently flawed model of private profit backed by public support, which encouraged risky revenue seeking and ultimately led to significant taxpayer losses.

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The United States has always encouraged home ownership, and rightly so. Home ownership builds wealth, stabilizes neighborhoods, creates jobs, and promotes economic growth. But it must be pursued responsibly. The right person must be matched to the right house (and consequently the right home loan), and in the years before the crisis we lost that discipline. The overstimulation of the housing market caused by government policy was exacerbated by other problems in that market.

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Nearly eight decades ago, after a series of banking crises led to the Great Depression, the United States put in place broad protections over the financial system. These reforms — deposit insurance, prudential rules to limit risk-taking by banks, and improved transparency and investor protection in our securities markets — alongside the Federal Reserve’s role as lender of last resort, laid the foundation for a more stable banking industry for several decades.

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Over time, however, the financial system outgrew those protections. A large parallel financial system emerged outside of the framework of protections established for traditional banks. A great diversity of financial institutions emerged to provide banking services to individuals and companies, and they were allowed to operate without being subject to the same constraints applied to traditional banks. The shift in mortgage lending away from banks, the growth of the relative importance of non bank financial institutions, the increase in the size of investment banks, and the emergence of a range of specialized financing vehicles are all manifestations of this phenomenon.