BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut is a people’s senator and has spent his political life standing up for us.  Once again, Dodd is taking the lead in calling for scrutiny of the banking system.  For years Dodd has fought against the uncapped interest rates credit card banks are allowed to charge consumers.  Most recently, he led to fight in the Senate against the Bush FISA bill… remember the filabuster.

Now, Dodd as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is taking the banking system to task.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) calls for hearings on the Federal Reserve’s role in saving investment firm Bear Stearns.

Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, says new regulations for financial institutions may be needed — especially since taxpayer dollars are part of the deal.

He invited representatives from the Treasury Department, Bear Stearns, the Fed, and JPMorgan to participate in the hearings.

Some of the questions Dodd says the hearings will address include whether there were any conflicts of interest involved, what alternatives there were and whether this is a one-off event or the model for future interventions.

Dodd generally favored the most recent events in bailing out Bear Stearns, but says that we need to take a look at exactly what was done and what the future implications will be.  He has been critical of the mortgage companies and the lack of regulation.

“Nothing was ever done about it: nothing, zero, not even proposed regulations. And frankly, I’m convinced, at this juncture, that that, among other things, was the reason why we got into this mess,” Dodd tells Robert Siegel.

“The epicenter of this [economic crisis] is housing. And the epicenter of the housing crisis is the foreclosure crisis. And so we need to get to the heart of that, and that’s why I’m recommending a series of legislative efforts here to deal specifically with that,” he says.

As usual Chris Dodd is up against the banks, who want no regulation, and those who are willing to bail out the big boys no matter what.  But, with Dodd as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee we can at the very least feel a little more comfortable knowing that he will ask the hard questions and do his best to protect the interests of the taxpayers.

Let’s hope that other senators will follow suit and take a good close look at the regulations, or lack thereof, and at last get some sort of regulations in place that will protect those of us who are footing the bill.  Once again, Dodd is the go to guy in the Senate when it comes to protecting the people.