As usual, the Trump administration’s proposed annual budget appears to be dead on arrival. It simply steps on too many legislative toes. Among the issues the budget will face is how Congress reacts to its treatment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A class action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York late last month, alleges that several of the dominant dealers in the debt instruments of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac colluded in a systematic price-fixing scheme between at least January 1, 2009, and April 27, 2014.

In early March, just before the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association voted in favor of allowing the uniform mortgage-backed security for delivery in the to-be-announced market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hosted a conference.

Mortgage sellers repurchased just $833.7 mil-lion of single-family loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities last year, according to a new Inside the GSEs analysis. [Includes one data chart.]

Late last month, Bloomberg reported that Kushner Cos., the real estate investment firm owned by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, was in negotiations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for as much a $1.15 billion in loans. Some facts, though, make it difficult to know if the story is accurate.

The Current Expected Credit Losses standard, a new accounting protocol expected to go into effect in 2020, could have an outsized impact on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a prominent Republican on the House Financial Services Committee.

A roundup of brief news items about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae last week announced that it would begin marketing its 10th sale of reperforming loans. Citigroup Global Markets will handle the marketing.

A working paper released by the National Association of Realtors at a conference in Washington, DC, this month makes a persuasive case that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be restructured as strictly regulated, shareholder-owned utilities. Perhaps more important, the paper establishes an effective format for evaluating other proposals for GSE reform.

Despite a slow fourth quarter, 2018 turned out to be the most profitable year since 2013 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, although only a fraction of the size of the GSEs’ single-family business, multifamily remained a bright spot. [Includes one data chart.]