(Reuters) - Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB), the nation's biggest mortgage finance company, on Thursday said it will pay $59.4 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury after a record profit in the first quarter that reflected a multibillion dollar tax-related gain.
http://www.reuters.com/...
This is the kind of news that infuriates Republicans. Fannie Mae has long been their punching bag - many of even them blame the entire mortgage crisis on the two big GSE's (Freddie Mac is the other). Republicans vowed to privatize Fannie Mae when they took the House in 2010.
Now Fannie Mae has repaid most of the emergency assistance it received:
The massive payment to the Treasury will reduce the net cost of Fannie Mae's taxpayer bailout to $21.1 billion.
It has received $116.1 billion in taxpayer funds since it and sibling Freddie Mac were seized by regulators in September 2008. By the end of June, it will have paid $95 billion in dividends to the Treasury for the government's stake.
Fannie Mae did this while reducing the mortgage payments of over one million homeowners an average of $3400 per year. This is testimony to the competence of the Obama administration.
The US Treasury manages Fannie Mae while it is in receivership. Rest assured, once repaid the GSE's will ask for their independence back.