Mitt Romney Isn't Telling Us Exactly How He Will Ruin The Housing Sector

Good news, everyone! Romney/Ryan have no specific plans to ruin the housing sector at this point, which is probably a good thing, given that Mitt Romney has been pretty clear about his interest in ruining education and Paul Ryan has a very specific plan to ruin Medicare and Medicaid . So let’s just all respectfully disagree with Business Insider, which thinks it's a Bad Thing that the campaign’s white paper on housing policy is basically just a collection of vague platitudes about “too big to fail” and “common sense reform” and blah blah etc, with one little part about how much EASIER it will be for banks to foreclose on you.

For example: here is a paragraph from their white paper, which is called "Securing the American Dream and the Future of Housing Policy” , taken from the aforementioned Business Insider article lamenting its lack of specificity:

End “Too-Big-To-Fail” And Reform Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac: The Romney-Ryan plan will completely end “too-big-to-fail” by reforming the GSEs. The four years since taxpayers took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, spending $140 billion in the process, is too long to wait for reform. Rather than just talk about reform, a Romney-Ryan Administration will protect taxpayers from additional risk in the future by reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and provide a long-term, sustainable solution for the future of housing finance reform in our country.

Note: GSE’s are “Government Sponsored Enterprises.” Meaning, they are privately held corporations with a specific public policy objective, like, for example, Fannie Mae (created in 1938) and Freddie Mac (created in 1970). After the housing crash in 2008, the federal government bailed them out and took them over, and if this is still confusing, the schoolmarms over at NPR’s Planet Money have a nice little explainer that you can check out here .

But ANYWAY, what will Romney/Ryan do for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They will “reform them.” How? We don’t know. What else will they do?

Other than that, in the paper, Romney talks about "responsibly" selling 200,000 government-owned homes, getting rid of Dodd Frank, improving the job market, and making foreclosures easier.

Oh ok, to whom will they sell these foreclosed homes? Not sure, don’t worry about it. They will also improve the job market! How? Eh, details, details! But anyway, this is the plan, guys. Reform stuff! Create jobs! Fix things! Less regulation! Also, something about Certainty in the market. Business Insider thinks this lack of specificity is a problem but we are actually thrilled -- it means that Romney/Ryan either isn't super invested in ruining the housing sector, or hasn't yet figured out how to ruin it.

 [Business Insider]