Michael Grunwald writes,

That bank currently has a portfolio of more than $3 trillion in loans, the bulk of them to about 8 million homeowners and 40 million students, the rest to a motley collection of farmers and fishermen, small businesses and giant exporters, clean-energy firms and fuel-efficient automakers, managed-care networks and historically black colleges, even countries like Israel and Tunisia. It has about 120 different credit programs but no consistent credit policy, requiring some borrowers to demonstrate credit-worthiness and others to demonstrate need, while giving student loans to just about anyone who wants one.

Read the whole thing.

Another excerpt:

When the U.S. government simply spends money to do stuff, it’s usually clear how much the stuff will cost to do. But that’s not true when the government lends money or guarantees loans by private lenders.

One idea I had for setting national economic priorities was to use scenario analysis to try to expose the risks in these programs. From a taxpayer perspective, this opacity is a bug. From a political perspective, of course, it’s a feature.