Credit union industry leaders are thinking about how important home mortgage originations are to the success of CUs, and how feasible mortgage lending would be if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not there to buy those mortgages. Now that Fannie and Freddie are running on government life support, CUs are wondering whether they can lend without an accessible secondary market and, if Fannie and Freddie go, if a reformed, privatized secondary market would really be accessible to originators with small volumes.

The attack on the mortgage-buying, government-sponsored enterprises is in progress. “Because Fannie and Freddie are poor agents of public policy and are political powerhouses with unmatch…