Top Dems Seek Price Tag For Larger Housing Bailout

Democrats just aren't shy any more about dropping the New Deal into conversations about the economic crisis.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and bailout architect Barney Frank (D-Mass.), are now asking the Congressional Budget Office to place a price tag on some of the most aggressive ideas for how the government could intervene in the housing crisis.

In a letter to the CBO, Emanuel and Frank ask for a cost estimate of creating a Homeowner’s Loan Corporation similar to the one created in 1933. The headline they reference from The New York Times is "From the New Deal, a Way Out of a Mess." This new government agency would be able to refinance two million mortgages and "borrow and lend as much as $200 to $400 billion."

Among other ideas in the Democrats' letters are New Deal-ish ideas like refinancing all existing home mortgages to 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 5.25%. Another idea in the letter has the federal government "offer any homeowner with a mortgage an opportunity to replace 20% of the mortgage with a low-interest loan from the government."

Mind you, Frank and Emanuel aren't actually proposing these ideas, just asking how much they cost. For now.

The full letter is posted after the jump.
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