FHFA Director to Resign Before Trump Inauguration
Yet again, another agency head is resigning rather than facing a humiliating termination once Donald Trump takes office.
The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Sandra Thompson, will be out effective January 19, 2025, the eve of the inauguration.
This is the agency that oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Home Loan Bank system.
Time to Go
It was not so long ago that removing this agency head was not so easy, but a recent Supreme Court decision has changed that.
Trump would be able to terminate her as soon as he walked in the door, and Thompson knew she had a target on her head, so she was not going to give Trump the pleasure of firing her.
Thompson has been under fire due to loans she had extended to other banking institutions that later crashed, creating a regional banking crisis about two years ago.
This is definitely an agency that I would expect Musk and Ramaswamy to look at once they take office, especially regarding some of the really bad decision-making.
Musk has tried to temper expectations on that front already, saying that the $2 trillion in cuts he promised during the campaign was a best-case scenario and that he would be very happy if they could manage to find $1 trillion.
In some agencies, they will be able to cut freely, but I am sure some of these agencies are going to be protected, and they will either need to litigate the cuts or have an act of Congress to make it happen.
There is also the fact Democrats do not like Ramaswamy and Musk making these calls, so they are going to fight Republicans on this every step of the way.
My expectations are much less, as I believe Musk will be lucky to get anything significant done because of the legal hurdles they will face.
While I believe they will accomplish little, the good news is that if they make recommendations and Dems block them, then the Dems own the problem.
In terms of the election, that is virtually as good as being able to boast about the massive cuts.
