The Bush Administration's Housing Support Act of 2008 authorized the Treasury to purchase agency mortgage-backed securities, and this program was subject to Congressional oversight, political accountability, and limits on the amount that could be purchased; by contrast, the Federal Reserve's subsequent MBS purchases lacked these governance constraints and resulted in much larger positions with similar fiscal distributional consequences
causalpending
Speaker
Peter StellaEvidence Quote
“the treasury was doing what the FED later did but what was the difference the treasury or the government had to pass along it was political Heat by the opposition when they passed the law...and of course Congress had to authorize uh the spending”
Source
Debt Death Spirals, Fed's Losses, & Fiscal Theory Of Price Level | Peter Stella & Joseph Wang— Forward GuidanceCreated: 8/10/2026, 10:58:24 PM
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