What does a failed mortgage giant have to do to get some attention these days? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have cost the US taxpayer $150bn and the bill could rise to at least twice that. Yet reform was not included in the Dodd-Frank bill and was ignored by Barack Obama in his State of the Union address.

It would have been awkward to admit, amid the president’s praise for free enterprise, that his government is much more entangled in its housing market than any European counterpart. Nor is there much sign, even if Fannie and Freddie are wound down, of an appetite for taking away official backing entirely.

Even Republicans who dislike Fannie and Freddie talk of a careful transition and of not damaging the housing market. Investors such as Bill Gross, co-founder of Pimco, have scared them into believing that, as he wrote: “Having grown accustomed to a market aided and abetted by Uncle Sam, the habit cannot be broken by going cold turkey.”