Radical new regulation of mortgage financing will take effect on January 10, 2014. Washington’s hastily crafted response to the financial crisis is built on the belief that the housing bubble and subsequent crash were the fault of unscrupulous mortgage lenders who took advantage of naive, uninformed consumers. In reality, lenders and borrowers were responding rationally to incentives created by an array of deeply flawed government policies. None of those major factors is addressed by the new regulatory regime. Congress instead opted to further empower the very establishment that fueled the crisis and then failed to contain it. Consequently, the new rules will unnecessarily limit mortgage options and access to credit, and thus further erode Americans’ freedom.