'No Immediate Plans' to Prop Up Freddie/Fannie: Paulson

The US government won't be lending capital to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the near future, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told a Senate committee today. "There are no immediate plans to access either the proposed liquidity or the proposed capital backstop,'' Paulson said, and any lending to the mortgage giants would be done "under terms and conditions that protect the US taxpayer," Bloomberg reports.

Earlier, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the convergence of housing-market problems with high energy prices "has sapped household purchasing power even as they have boosted inflation," leaving the US financial picture gloomy. However, CNNMoney reports, the Fed raised its forecast for 2008 growth to between 1% and 1.6%—up from earlier forecasts of 0.3%-1.2%. (More Fannie Mae stories.)