The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Banking Committee said
they had reached agreement on the broad outlines of a bill to overhaul
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the nation’s $9.9 trillion mortgage
market, drawing a strong statement of support from the White House. The
bill will call for replacing Fannie and Freddie with a new system of
federally insured mortgage securities in which private insurers would be
required to take initial losses before any government guarantee would
be triggered.
The agreement announced Tuesday between Sens. Tim Johnson
(D., S.D.) and Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) follows closely on the work of a
proposal released last year by Sens. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and Mark
Warner (D., Va.).