Democrats and Republicans have many disagreements about the government-sponsored enterprises. Those include, apparently, how high GSEs are on the government's priority list.
At a hearing Thursday, Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on when the administration will release a GSE reform plan that is more detailed than its April white paper, which provided a rough sketch of three different options.
"Mr. Secretary, you remember we had a meeting back in April, and we said, 'We want to work with you,'" said Garrett, chairman of the House subcommittee on government-sponsored enterprises. "You did a white paper. You had three plans. And we sincerely want to work with you. And you said: Let you have a little bit of time.
"Well, that was back in April. This is May, June, July, August, September, October. In a nutshell, when can we have a response to our April request as to what the administration's exact details are, not another white paper?"
Geithner shot back, "I meant what I said when I said that to you in April, which is that we are looking at options. We're happy to discuss them with you."
Then, with some sarcasm, Geithner pointed out that the administration is not necessarily twiddling its thumbs. "As you know, we've been a little busy. We had a little crisis in Europe, we had a little debt limit debate," he said.
