This man made millions suffer: Tim Geithner’s sorry legacy on housing
Forget the book tour designed to polish his legacy. Tim Geithner's record on housing will forever live in infamy
By DAVID DAYEN at Salon
As Salon pointed out yesterday, Bush-era economist and Romney advisor Glenn Hubbard claims former Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner lied in his book “Stress Test,” when describing a conversation from 2012 about Hubbard supporting tax increases. But while the he said/she said doesn’t interest me, a separate, throwaway statement by Hubbard does matter — in fact, it tells you plenty about Geithner and his policy preferences during Obama’s first term.
“I saw some of the excerpts about housing and I must say I split my side in laughter because Tim Geithner personally and actively opposed mortgage refinancing, constantly,” Hubbard told Politico. “And now he’s claiming this would be a great idea in the country.”
We aren’t obligated to believe Hubbard here, especially because his recollection of the tax conversation is probably misleading, if not untrue. And unfortunately, Hubbard declined to elaborate when I asked him for more detail. However, we have a ton of public information available to inform the debate over Geithner and housing.
When Hubbard talks about refinancing, he’s being very specific. He co-wrote a plan in 2008 endorsing mass refinancing through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as a economic stimulus, getting homeowners reduced monthly payments. This was one of the major fiscal policy tools available to the Administration that didn’t require additional spending — the Federal Reserve had lowered interest rates, it was merely up to Fannie and Freddie to take advantage of it. But in the early years of the crisis, the White House did little. Brad DeLongbacks up Hubbard on this point, saying he never got a satisfactory answer for the lack of mass refinancing.
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