Government

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs will not be receiving the multi-million dollar pay raises proposed by their conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, earlier this year. The U.S. House of Representatives passed S. 2036 by voice vote on Monday night, placing a cap on the salaries of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs right at the original amount of $600,000 per year.

Democratic presidential candidates deliberated recently in their second primary debate, ultimately determining that something must be done about Wall Street banks.

The Federal Housing Administration's Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund gained $19 billion in economic value during Fiscal Year 2015, pushing its capital ratio past the 2 percent threshold required by Congress, according to HUD’s annual report to Congress released Monday morning.

In an address about the economic outlook in the United States and monetary policy at the Economic Club of New York this week, New York Fed President and CEO Bill Dudley praised the progress housing has made during the economic recovery but refused to offer his views on whether the Fed would raise the short-term interest rate in December.

A pair of former advisors to the Clinton and Obama administrations recently laid out plans to bring the contentious “recap and release” proposal to recapitalize the GSEs and release them from government conservatorship to reality.

Mortgage interest rates rose for the second consecutive week following a strong October jobs report and a slight jump in wage growth, which pushed Treasury yields up and increased chances for a December rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

"In Dodd-Frank, you have actually codified too big to fail. We have actually created a category of systemically important institutions, and these banks go around bragging about it. You know what they say to people with a wink and a nod? We are so big, we are so important that if we get in trouble, the government has to bail us out. This is an outrage. We need to repeal Dodd-Frank as soon as possible." - Sen. Marco Rubio

Data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey showed that mortgage loan application volume decreased 1.3 percent from last week on a seasonally adjusted basis.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) wrote two letters on Tuesday to government agencies based on the findings of their investigation of taxpayer and economic risk created by last year’s partial repeal of Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Conform and Consumer Protection Act.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been the target of much scrutiny in the last year as new regulation unfolded, but many question the structure and leadership within the government agency.