During floor debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, Republicans continually professed outrage that Democrats and the Obama administration pushed remaking the government sponsored mortgage enterprises (GSE’s) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — to a later date. Delay made sense at the time, given the scope of the reform the GSE’s need, and now that they’re poised to take over the House of Representatives, Republicans are gearing up to tackle Fannie and Freddie.

When it comes to mortgage finance reform, many Republicans favor what American Banker called “pristine privatization,” or a system with literally no public mortgage support. Senate Banking Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) has said he is “very skeptical” of preserving any federal role in mortgage finance, while many Republicans in the Senate favored a hugely irresponsible plan proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that would have ended federal involvement in the mortgage market on a date certain. House Republicans have introduced legislation in the same vein.

But as David Min, associate director of financial markets policy at the Center for American Progress, wrote in The Hill today, we already know what this vision for the mortgage market looks like. Min noted that “prior to the 1930s, the United States had a purely private mortgage system in which the government played only a negligible role. This system failed the vast majority of Americans, as mortgages were extremely limited and hugely expensive, and only available to the wealthiest homebuyers”:

Residential mortgages prior to the 1930s had many of the same features as the unregulated subprime and so called Alt-A mortgages of the 2000s — they were short term, carried a variable rate of interest, and featured “bullet” payments of principal at term. These loans also required high down payments, often more than 50 percent, and despite their highly lender-friendly features had interest rates that were extraordinarily costly by today’s standards. Because home mortgages were scarce, expensive, high risk, and effectively limited to a narrow band of the wealthiest Americans, homeownership was far less attainable than it is today, with the middle class effectively shut out of the market.

And this system didn’t work for banks either, as extreme boom-and-bust cycles in an unregulated system regularly led to bank failures.

No one — even the housing guru Republicans love to hate, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) — is suggesting that Fannie and Freddie be preserved exactly as they are. But removing all government support for the mortgage market would take us back to an era when only the very wealthy had access to homeownership, while kicking the legs out from underneath the GSE’s at a time when they’re supporting 90 percent of the mortgage market.

I’ve been following various Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee as, in anticipation of the GOP gaining control of the lower chamber, they promise to repeal or defund important provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. And if his recent interviews are any indication, these representatives may have a sympathetic counterpart in Rand Paul, Kentucky’s Republican Senate nominee.

Last night, during an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, Paul asserted that his plan for growing the economy and creating jobs is to prevent some of Dodd-Frank’s regulations from coming online:

KUDLOW: In your campaign, what are your proposals to grow the economy and get jobs?

PAUL: Well, my biggest concern right now, and I think it’s not being talked about enough, was the banking regulatory bill…My fear is that a bad recession could turn into a worse recession because of overzealous regulations on banks.

On CNN this morning, Paul reiterated his concern with Dodd-Frank, saying “we need to repeal the things that are preventing us from getting out of this recession.” Watch a compilation:

Contrary to Paul’s assertion, businesses large and small are having trouble accessing loans because the economy is weak and banks are holding onto money (much like large corporations are). Lifting regulations is not going to suddenly make them feel that economic conditions merit making loans, but it would free them up to reengage in some of the risky practices that led to the financial meltdown.

Of course, this fits in with Paul’s wider corporatist agenda, in which businesses could discriminate against customers because of their skin color and safety regulations for workers would cease to exist. But if he winds up in the Senate, Paul will be joined in his push for repeal by Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). Washington’s Republican Senate nominee Dino Rossi has also said that he would like to see Dodd-Frank repealed. Paul is taking it further, though, claiming that the number one thing that the government can do to create jobs is to encourage Wall Street to go back to running wild.

Regulators are already designing some of the much needed rules to govern Wall Street — particularly those having to do with derivatives and the Volcker rule — and Republicans have made clear they want to throw sand into the regulators’ gears (as any repeal effort will in all likelihood be vetoed by President Obama), burying them in paperwork and hearing appearances that take time away from the rule-writing effort. And it seems that Paul would be all too happy to join in that game.

If Republicans gain a majority in today’s election, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is in line to take over the gavel of the House Budget Committee. Earlier this year, Republicans were loathe to associate themselves with Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future — a plan that purports to balance the budget by slashing entitlement spending — with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) pointedly refusing to endorse it.

However, on Fox Business yesterday, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who is slated to become chairman of the House Financial Services Committee should the GOP take the House, threw his endorsement to Ryan’s plan. Bachus made it clear, though, that he has no idea what the plan actually means, as he ludicrously asserted that it doesn’t entail any benefit cuts:

I endorse Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which will slow the federal government to 19 percent of our GDP, which is really high by historic channels. And he doesn’t cut any benefits to do that. He gradually raises the retirement age, not for those who are approaching retirement now, and simply gets a handle on accountability. You don’t really have to cut.

Watch it:

Leaving aside the simple matter that raising the retirement age is a benefit cut, Bachus seems to have no grasp at all on what Ryan’s radical Roadmap for America’s Future would mean for the entitlement programs. First, Social Security:

The Ryan plan proposes large cuts in Social Security benefits — roughly 16 percent for the average new retiree in 2050 and 28 percent in 2080 from price indexing alone — and initially diverts most of these savings to help fund private accounts rather than to restore Social Security solvency. Because the plan would divert large sums from Social Security to private accounts, it would leave the program facing insolvency in about 30 years, just as under current law.

And then Medicare:

The Ryan plan would eliminate traditional Medicare, most of Medicaid, and all of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), converting these health programs largely to vouchers…By 2080, Medicare would be cut 76 percent below its projected size under current policies, according to CBO. In other words, by 2080, the vouchers that would replace Medicare would receive one-quarter of the resources that Medicare would otherwise use.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summed up, the Roadmap’s cuts “would be so severe that CBO estimates they would shrink total federal expenditures (other than on interest payments) from roughly 19 percent of GDP in recent years to just 13.8 percent of GDP by 2080. Federal spending has not equaled such a low level of GDP since 1950, when Medicare and Medicaid did not yet exist, Social Security failed to cover many workers, and close to half of the elderly people in the United States lived below the poverty line.”

The whole point of Ryan’s radical plan is to attempt to balance the budget by obliterating entitlements. And even while their social safety net is torn out from under them, the Roadmap would result in 90 percent of Americans paying higher taxes.