The debate over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform often revolves around the question of whether taxpayers will remain on the hook when all of the reforms are put into play. But at the end of the day, the main focus of the debate should be on the management of mortgage credit risk. Reuters explains:

So the conversation, in the end, shouldn’t be about competing visions, because vision doesn’t have anything to do with how the market works. It should be about this beast (which can trick us into believing it’s been tamed) called mortgage credit risk. How much demand for it does a reform plan require? Is that demand likely to materialize, and if so, what is the source? And are the costs, whether they are on the backs of taxpayers or homeowners, acceptable to all of us? It’s math, not politics.