Will we make the same housing mistakes?

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., last week laid out an ambitious 2009 legislative program for his committee. The program will tackle regulatory reform of the financial services sector and may include a super regulator to manage systemic risk. While announcing the agenda, Mr. Frank declared that Congress would get back into the business of building "affordable" housing. It is hard to know if that was a promise or a threat, given that congressional pressure on banks, and Fannie Mae of Washington and Freddie Mac of McLean, Va., to increase lending to low-income homebuyers contributed significantly to the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis. Given Mr. Frank's role in pressuring Fannie and Freddie over low-income housing and in fighting off efforts to rein in the agencies when they were becoming overextended, it isn't altogether comforting that he will be guiding the regulatory reform efforts. Let's hope that he approaches regulatory reform with unaccustomed humility and an open mind to new proposals.