HUD Mandates Did Not Drive Fannie and Freddie's 2008 Collapse

The claim in the MERIDIAN/finance piece that 'HUD-mandated affordable-housing targets, not deregulation, compelled Fannie and Freddie to degrade underwriting standards' reverses the evidence. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report (2011) found GSEs entered the subprime market late, after private issuers had already securitized over $1.2 trillion in risky loans by 2006; their market share fell from 70% to under 50% during the bubble peak. A 2010 Federal Reserve study by Frame and White showed affordable housing goals explained at most 3-5% of GSE purchases of high-risk loans, with the bulk driven by profit-seeking competition from Wall Street. Private-label MBS defaults reached 30%+ while GSE pools stayed below 10%, confirming the mandates followed rather than led the degradation.