Dodd-Shelby: Another "Save the People" Con Game

The principal author of the Dodd-Shelby housing-bailout bill is Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over the mortgage market. Last week, Portfolio magazine revealed that Dodd was one of two U.S. senators who benefited from a program under which Countrywide Financial gave loans at favorable terms to the influential and the powerful. The other senator was Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota....Countrywide Corruption, National Review, the editors, 6/18/2008

Oh, wonder of wonders, a "reformer" turns out to be a confidence man with designs on the money.

But as powerful as Conrad is, the allegations against Dodd are more disturbing because he wields so much power over Countrywide’s fortunes and because he has used that power to benefit Countrywide. According to Portfolio’s calculations, the preferential loan rates Dodd received on two mortgages could end up saving him $75,000...The troubling nature of this arrangement becomes clear when one looks at the fine print of the Dodd-Shelby housing bill....mortgage lenders — of which Countrywide is the largest in the U.S. — would agree to renegotiate their most troubled home loans in exchange for a federal guarantee on those loans. If the borrowers who took out those troubled loans end up defaulting, the government would cover any losses the mortgage lenders incur....(Countrywide Corruption, continued...)

And guess who get to pay Chris Dodd and his constituents for their careless financial arrangements? Yep, you do! See, that's the way it works with the Left. If somebody makes a mistake, they were victimized. Therefore, someone else's mistake goes on your bill. If someone, say a mortgage broker, contributed to that mistake by unethical conduct, then -- hey! make a speech and then send the bill to the taxpayer (you).

Or, as the editors of National Review put it, "if the Senate passes the Dodd-Shelby housing bailout before such an investigation can run its course — especially if that investigation finds that members of Congress were improperly influenced — it will have allowed Countrywide to take the money and run."

Luther