The International Monetary Fund says the U.S. federal government should continue securitizing mortgages to support the country’s weak housing market, though it said the guarantees “should be explicit and fully accounted for” on the federal balance sheet. The Obama administration, as well as President George Bush, did not include the costs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their budgets. The IMF criticized the Obama administration for not addressing the mortgage-interest deduction, which the IMF called “both expensive and regressive.”
