June 16,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, released the following statement after the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) issued an alert that Fannie Mae increased the projected budget for their new Washington, D.C. headquarters by over 50 percent. Fannie Mae is one of the government-sponsored enterprises that was put in conservatorship after taking a $200 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008.
“Like a child with a credit card in a toy store, the bureaucrats at Fannie Mae just couldn’t help themselves. After being forced to bail out the GSE’s to the tune of nearly $200 billion, American taxpayers now get the news that they are underwriting lavish spending at Fannie Mae’s new downtown Washington, D.C. headquarters. So while Americans around the country are living paycheck to paycheck, Washington insiders are blowing through budgets by designing glass enclosed bridges and rooftop decks.
“Even more troubling, the Federal Housing Finance Authority—the entity whose sole job it is to oversee the GSE’s—appears to have been asleep at the wheel as costs spiraled out of control. This is the same FHFA that just last year thought it was a good idea to give GSE executives a pay raise to nearly $4 million. This complete failure by FHFA and the excess displayed by Fannie Mae are the exact reasons why the American people are disgusted by business as usual in Washington, D.C.”
