Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with a $39 billion payment to the U.S. Treasury by the end of the year, will be close to repaying the government almost the entire amount that was injected into the mortgage-finance giants during the financial crisis — nearly $188 billion.

Unlike other financial companies — and General Motors — that were bailed out by the taxpayers, these mortgage giants will continue to send almost all of their profits to the Treasury as dividends.

Since 2011, the administration has supported overhauling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which long benefited from their implicit government guarantees and came to symbolize a self-dealing Washington culture that benefited both major political parties.

After their takeover as part of their bailout, lawmakers wanted to phase out the firms as part of an overhaul of the nation’s $10 trillion mortgage market.

But the current profitability of Fannie and Freddie should reshape the debate in Washington and on Wall Street over how and when to restructure them.

After the Great Recession, private investors shunned lending because they lost billions when the housing bubble burst. In response, Fannie and Freddie were forced to expand their lending and guarantees. Their share of the market rose from roughly 40 percent pre-crisis to 77 percent in 2012.

In short, these two mortgage goliaths played a critical role in our housing recovery by providing access to loans at affordable interest rates. This liquidity propped up the housing market after private capital fled.

The companies’ profitability in large part reflects the sharp home-price rebound, particularly in California, Arizona, Florida and Nevada. In 2008-2009, Fannie and Freddie were forced to establish significant reserves in anticipation of rising mortgage defaults during the housing bust. Because housing prices have risen, Fannie and Freddie are losing less money on sales of distressed properties than they had earlier anticipated. These lower losses have boosted their bottom lines, but might not continue to do so.

Donald Layton, Freddie’s chief executive, said the recent level of earnings “is not sustainable. At some point, home-price growth will moderate as housing markets reach the end of their recovery cycle.”

President Barack Obama in August outlined his ideas for reshaping the country’s housing-finance system. He called for the housing-finance market to be primarily driven by private capital, with a “limited” federal role. He then essentially endorsed a bipartisan Senate bill that calls for winding down Fannie and Freddie over five years.

A competing bill in the House would go even further. It would almost completely privatize the mortgage market.

Those who oppose eviscerating Fannie and Freddie make the following arguments:

Reducing Fannie and Freddie’s role would raise mortgage costs because the market would associate greater risk with loans.

Private lenders would require borrowers to put down larger down payments.

Fannie and Freddie alone are able to handle the credit risk of 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages, the mainstay of the mortgage market. The private market finds it difficult to provide long-term financing at reasonable rates.

I have a revolutionary proposal for determining the fate of Fannie and Freddie. One year from now, based on a coin toss, I recommend that the Republicans in the House and Senate have full responsibility for one of the mortgage giants and the Democrats take on the other one.

Each political party will then select their respective institutions’ board of directors, executives and corporate agendas. The American public can, over time, judge the wisdom of their respective visions and their operating effectiveness.

The political benefits from success and/or the negative fallout from failure might energize political leaders to find experts to develop long-term, constructive solutions for our mortgage industry.

Fear — and competition — are wonderful for focusing the mind on results, not posturing and blather.

Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune