Unless politicians from both sides get their acts together, the recent voting conflict in the U.S. House of Representatives is bad news for the nation.

Secretary Geithner argued that we have forgotten the reasons that the Dodd-Frank Act was necessary, and that's why the act has become so controversial. What the secretary seems to have missed is that we have learned a lot in the intervening years. The administration's rush to judgment on the financial crisis is a case study in why it would have been worthwhile to wait for the facts.

In case you missed it: in a recent piece, mortgage finance and housing expert Edward Pinto writes that the 30-years mortgage could well be the cause of a new housing bubble.

In less than twenty-five years, government “affordable housing” and other housing policies have turned a healthy market into a financial ruin. Until Fannie and Freddie’s market dominance and the government’s role in the housing finance system are substantially reduced or eliminated, the United States will continue to have an inferior and unstable housing market.

As critics see it, the loss of our common culture is a result not of cultural changes but of shifts in policy and the economy. There are two problems with this line of argument.

Fannie Mae did not contribute marginally to the financial crisis. It was the source of the declining mortgage underwriting standards that brought down the system.

The retirement of Rep. Barney Frank from the House will cause mourning among all in the Congress-watcher and Congress-lover fraternity.  Meanwhile, the super committee’s inability to reach any agreement was shrugged off by most observers as the expected outcome, and it was, but I was deeply disappointed nonetheless.