For many years, community financial institutions have been denied fair and equal access to the secondary market. Banks prosper by making prudent loans with an adequate return and maintaining a reasonable cost structure. Today 97 percent of our banks are community banks and they are increasingly finding this business model under siege.

HUD recently issued its first official response to the report "Is FHA the Next Housing Bailout?", providing important insight into the perspective of HUD’s leadership on the issue of the solvency of the FHA insurance fund.

History has shown--and simple economics would anticipate--that a government subsidy for a freely prepayable 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is not good policy.

Scott Gottlieb's testimony on the Independent Payment Advisory Board for the Committee on Ways and Means' subcommittee on health.

President Obama in his State of the Union Address proposed that legislation be passed authorizing FHA to provide all homeowners that are current on their mortgage the opportunity to refinance at today's record low rates.

The housing system can function perfectly well without government backing. The key is making sure most mortgages are prime loans.

FHA Watch, now in its second issue, focuses on the government’s taxpayer-backed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage guarantee program, the risks it poses for taxpayers, families and communities, and the opportunities for reform that lead to sustainable homeownership and a fiscally sound FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund.

If the financial crisis was caused by subprime mortgages and predatory lending, the government's own policies made it happen.