BE SMART ABOUT: Brian Montgomery, Nominated to Lead Federal Housing Administration Again

It can be a struggle in daily conversations to explain the impacts this election has every day on the decisions being made to govern our society.  Trump's handlers are putting individuals in positions of real, tangible power who are spending every hour of every day implementing policies in an efficient, destructive manner.  They are doing the exact things their prior words, actions, and lobbyist bosses should have made obvious.

BE SMART ABOUT is our continuing unfortunate series highlighting examples of those in power who you need to stay informed about so you can share this knowledge and together we can Be Smart and Actively Dissent.

Today we discuss Brian Montgomery, a name you likely read for the first time in the title of this post despite his leading role in the 2008 housing market collapse.  In mid-September, Trump announced the nomination of Montgomery for Federal Housing Administration commissioner.  His confirmation hearings were in late-October 2017.

If confirmed, it will be Montgomery's second tour as FHA commissioner. He held the job under Bush, staying on for six months after former President Barack Obama's inauguration. 

Yes, that means Montgomery was in charge of the FHA during the period of the housing bubble in which banks and other lenders were allowed to act in fraudulent manners leading to housing market collapse, foreclosures that still carry on to this day, not to mention an overall economic collapse.

The FHA, a unit of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is one of the country's biggest sources of funding for home loans. The agency needed a $1.7 billion cash infusion from the Treasury after the 2008 housing collapse sent millions of homeowners into default on FHA-insured mortgages.

That is where Montgomery left the FHA and us last time.  Trump thinks he should get the job again!  And this time around, he gets to make the rules to help ensure nothing changes.

Given the FHA's size and its mission to help lower-income and first-time homebuyers, the incoming commissioner promises to be a central voice in the debate on housing reform.  Nine years after the subprime lending bubble, lawmakers have yet to retool the nation's mortgage infrastructure.  Montgomery has said that "excessive enforcement" on mortgage lenders has prevented many Americans from becoming homeowners and building household wealth.

Montgomery thinks the very limited rules put into place after an unspeakable housing collapse at the hands of lenders are TOO strong.  There's no doubt what his second turn leading FHA will not include and that's upholding the mission of the FHA to help lower-income home buyers.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren stated in grilling Montgomery at his Senate confirmation hearing, "Montgomery let big banks submit fraudulent mortgages on his watch and then founded a company to advise those banks on how to avoid paying the government back. Now he wants to run FHA again." Warren followed up on Twitter, "I’ve seen some amazing cases of people spinning through the Washington revolving door, but Brian Montgomery for FHA might take the cake."

 

Sources:

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/brian-montgomery-federal-housing-administration-238217

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/41290-trump-picks-brian-montgomery-to-lead-fha

 

Date: 
Monday, November 27, 2017
Tags: 
Economy
Regulations