Bipartisan because both parties are captive to special interests. Bloomberg, among others, covered the story, shallowly.

A bill to be offered by Senators Bob Corker and Mark Warner reflects a prevailing view among lawmakers that the two government-sponsored enterprises should cease to exist while a federal role in backing mortgage lending should remain. Corker, a Tennessee Republican, and Warner, a Virginia Democrat, held a news conference to introduce the measure yesterday.

Mortgage-backed securities have not proven that they can survive without a government guarantee. Without mortgage-backed securities, the mortgage banking industry probably would do very poorly. Hence the head of their trade association is quoted as praising the bill.

The big winners in the bill would be Wall Street, which has always wanted a government-guaranteed mortgage securities industry minus Freddie and Fannie. If you think that Wall Street firms did such a great job in helping the mortgage market over the past ten years that they deserve to be rewarded, then this is the bill you want to get behind.

Peter Wallison also sees this as the same-old, same-old.

It would be easy to love a bill that gets rid of these two institutions [Freddie and Fannie]—unless it fosters the same loose lending that led to the housing debacle. By keeping the government in charge, this bill does just that.