THIS fall, federal regulators made a controversial decision to back down from tough new underwriting standards for mortgages. Some affordable-housing advocates, allied with parts of the corporate housing industry, had successfully argued that the proposed standards would make it too hard for people to qualify, thereby reducing homeownership and hurting the housing market. Last summer, that same trump card stopped a bipartisan bill to reform the mortgage market, more than six years after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be taken over by the government.
