In 2008, America's largest government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)--the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)--recorded combined net losses of $109 billion. This figure surpassed the GSEs' cumulative net income over the prior 40 years, and the federal government placed both GSEs in conservatorship on September 6, 2008. Although Congress clearly intended such conservatorships to be temporary, unlike the receivership process that it designed for closing an insolvent GSE, both GSEs remain insolvent and in conservatorship. Throughout the 16-year conservatorship, many people have proposed plans to rework the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements (PSPAs) that specify the terms of the support the US Treasury provided to the GSEs. Although renegotiating the PSPAs may be necessary to end the GSEs' conservatorships, any new deal should be structured to facilitate receivership and liquidation, accelerating an end to America's failed GSE experiment. The federal government's dominance in the housing finance market--both before and throughout the GSE conservatorships--has stifled private competition and worsened Americans' financial condition, but it has done virtually nothing to increase the homeownership rate. It is time to wind down the affairs of the GSEs through receivership, a process that the federal government should have undertaken in 2008.