Congress and the Administration have now picked their targets for regulatory reform following the long-inflating credit bubble that finally burst in 2008, the aftermath of which still suppresses economic activity here in America as well as the rest of the world.

Commercial banks, investment banks, financial products, derivatives, etc. . . .all were placed in the crosshairs of the big legislative and regulatory guns in Washington and, perhaps, well they should be. One trophy-size culprit, however, seems nowhere to be found on the target lists of the Congressional or Administration grenadiers. Fannie Mae, that publically traded, congressionally created, private enterprise (GSE or government-sponsored enterprise in beltway speak) seems to have totally escaped the purview of the government blame seekers.  Small wonder.

Of all of the bailouts handed over to private banks, investment firms, automobile companies and insurance companies, none have been more outrageous than the bailouts provided to Fannie Mae and it’s first cousin, Freddie Mac.  Although the government very belatedly seized these GSEs, taxpayer money continues to be provided to these hybrid public‑private creations right under our collective noses each and every day.  The Congressional pontificators have focused attention on every miscreant except the one they (or their predecessors) created and which they continue to feed.

Everyone agrees that the overheated housing market created a pricing bubble that was destined, like the San Andreas Fault or Eyjafjalljokull, the volcanic mountain in Iceland, to experience a major blow-up.

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As self-righteous Senators grill Goldman Sachs about their role in the housing bubble, it would not be far fetched to request that the Senators switch seats with the Goldman executives.

After all, it wasn’t Goldman that passed the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to make loans to people who could never pay them back. It wasn’t Goldman that created and supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it wasn’t Goldman that drove interest rates down to a below market level to cause a housing rush not seen since gold was found in them thar’ hills in the mid-1800s.

But if Senators were really interested in finding out the cause of the housing bubble, they would call one Eric Stein to the dais.

Mr. Stein is currently that Deputy Secretary of Treasury for consumer protection and is likely to head the vastly powerful Consumer Bureaucracy currently being pushed by big banks and Wall Street. But prior to his appointment to Treasury, Mr. Stein the bag man for the Center for Responsible Lending and its many Self Help subsidiaries, was singly responsible for more bad loans than all Goldman employees together. Working with billionaire con-man John Paulson, Stein lobbied to pass the laws at the root of the crisis and pressured banks to make bad loans that caused their portfolios to collapse when the economy turned. They were the Bonnie and Clyde of the subprime mortgage world.

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The activity surrounding the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) in the financial reform legislation is really picking up these days.  But many Americans would never know it.  It seems Democrats may have learned something from the experience of the health care bill after all.  In their efforts to avert a repeat disaster of losing control of the message, they appear to be taking every step necessary to ensure that the public engages as little as possible in this debate.

But I assure you, this is a debate that the American public should engage in, pronto.

Because behind the scenes, certain lobbyists are quietly but aggressively scurrying about, pushing hard for the passage of the CFPA in a power grab by the Executive Branch that would dwarf the Health Care Reform bill and the Patriot Act.  And with the passage of the proposed CFPA, one man in particular with a history tied to some of the deepest tentacles in the financial crisis – and to the Community Reinvestment Act changes of 1995 – would gain the power to selectively manipulate the entire landscape of the financial, small business and housing markets.

Last week, we reintroduced you to an early trigger in the financial crisis, with good reason. In “Death by Senator: As Financial Reform Looms, We Revisit IndyMac,” we revisited the role that Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) very public letter played in the fall of one financial institution.  As I ended that piece, I teased that there was more to the story that would soon follow.

So, let’s pick up from June 30, 2008.

Merely days after the now infamous Schumer letter triggered a run on the bank that would total over $1.3 billion, this lengthy and scathing report was released to the public:

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Now that the health care bill has been passed into law, many Americans are asking, what’s next? Will it be Immigration Reform?  Will it be Cap and Trade in the Senate?

Take a cue from the White House’s recent announcement to use TARP funds to expand the housing aid program, which will also enable some homeowners to refinance their current private-lender mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) instead.  And if you’ve followed some of my SEIU posts in recent months, you know very well that Financial Reform has been number two on their list.

Just days ago, the Senate Banking Committee approved Senator Chris Dodd’s (D-CT)  financial reform proposal, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.  Behind the scenes, Dodd is said to have been working with House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) to negotiate a final version of the bill that the House will approve.  Just two weeks before it passed the Health Care bill last December, the House passed H.R.4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.  While Dodd’s bill is viewed as less stringent than the House bill, both include a controversial stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).  If these next several weeks of closed-door negotiations are successful, word on The Hill is that we could see financial reform enacted by Memorial Day.

The proposed legislation, most specifically the CFPA, extends far beyond Wall Street; it will expand government even further and give it unprecedented powers like never before.  And with more government power comes the potential for abuse.

Let’s be reminded, for example, of what Senator Chuck Schumer did to one financial institution in 2008.

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Despite the few voices of caution, risk and leverage had become a national fixation, embraced both on Wall Street and in government. The SEC and the Fed, the main regulators in charge of monitoring the buildup of risky assets on the banks’ books, together with the rating agencies, were the modern-day equivalents of Nero fiddling as Rome burned.The fire in this case was the massive and rapid buildup of mortgage debt on the balance sheets of the banks; by 2006 it was approaching $1 trillion and heading higher without so much as a peep from the traditional watchdogs.

Still, the risk taking and leverage went beyond the brokerage houses and the banks. The GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were in the game as well. By now, Fannie and Freddie had fully and completely conceded their original mandates to the whims of the Washington political class, which demanded “affordable” housing for all, even those who couldn’t afford it. The politicians were giddy with Fannie and Freddie’s conversion from staid mortgage banks to subprime lenders that would make Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of the largest subprime lender in the markets, Countrywide Financial, envious.

It was an evolution that took years in the making. As HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo boasted in one report in the late 1990s that the new mandates he was imposing on Fannie and Freddie to ramp up subprime lending “could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas.”

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