To revitalize the mortgage market, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts said two of the country’s largest mortgage companies should be abolished. The Democratic congressman’s comment came after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hosted a conference of industry leaders in Washington as part of efforts to reform the $10.7-trillion mortgage market.

Frank stressed that the government should be prioritizing other housing projects instead of spending more taxpayer’s money on the rehabilitation of the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Mortgage Corp. The two government-sponsored enterprises, popularly known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, respectively, reportedly received at least $150-billion worth of financial aid from the government.

“There is no more hybrid private-public. If we want to subsidize housing then we could do it upfront and let the budget be clear about that,” Frank said, adding that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be replaced with a “new mechanism” to help subsidize housing.

The representative, who is also the current chairman of the House Financial Services committee, also urged the Federal Housing Administration to be self-financing and voiced criticisms on government policies that promoted homeownership. He stressed that not all Americans want to be homeowners.

“I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into homeownership,” Frank remarked. “Public policy has been too much to try to push people into homeownership.”

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