Word: congressed
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...more in claims that it forecast. The agency has just $3.6 billion on hand to cover any unexpected losses in its $685 billion portfolio. That paltry level of reserve funding, less than is mandated by the government, has left some members of Congress in a twitchy mood and some onlookers to wonder if the FHA will eventually need a massive infusion of cash. (See high-end homes that won't sell...
...Congress does wind up extending emergency funds to the FHA - which is a full-fledged part of the Federal Government, unlike quasi-government bailout beneficiaries Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - it will be in large part because of the role the agency has played in stabilizing the housing market. Last spring, as first-time home buyers rushed to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit designed to lure them into the market, the FHA insured a full 49% of their mortgages. In October, Congress renewed a higher limit on the size of FHA loans...
...recent months, the FHA has suspended eight of its lenders, hired its first chief risk officer and taken other steps to beef up its controls. But some bad calls - whether from a lack of resources (it has long begged Congress to fund computer upgrades) or a lack of judgment - will haunt the agency for years. Loans it backed in 2006 and 2007 are souring at a particularly high rate because of seller-financed down payments; when a home buyer isn't the one ponying up equity, there is more than twice as much chance that the loan will...
...National Institute of Military Justice who teaches military law at Yale. The charges that Calley directed the massacre of 104 Vietnamese villagers in 1968 fed the national debate over the war and his 1971 trial underlined the country's divisions. Politics intruded into the Calley case when Congress refused to release secret testimony about the incident. President Richard Nixon mitigated Calley's sentence over the objections of Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Freed by an appeals court after only 3½ years of military house arrest, Calley, who had been sentenced to a life term of hard labor...
Lessons have been learned since the Calley case, Silliman says, not the least of which is the danger of political intrusion and command influence. While members of Congress may enter the hot debate, President Barack Obama as Commander in Chief must be wary not to exert "unlawful command influence" in his pronouncements on the case, Silliman says, just as President George W. Bush and Administration officials in the chain of command were cautious in the Abu Ghraib cases. So far, Obama has not stepped over the line, Silliman says, by specifically naming Hasan. This is as close as the President...