Say Anything Blog

I’m sure this is old hat to North Dakota readers that also read the Fargo Forum or one of their newspapers.  Oh wait, the Forum Communications properties only print what Kent Conrad wants them to print.

While benefiting from those discounted Countrywide loans, Dodd used his position as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee to craft a bill to require the government to purchase up to $300 billion in bad loans from mortgage lenders. This would certainly benefit Countrywide as it is the largest mortgage provider in the United States.

During the regular process of creating legislation,the chairman of the relevant committee is required to send a “Views and Estimates” letter to the Budget chairman outlining budget requirements for the bill. In this case, Banking Chairman Dodd needed to send a letter to Budget Chairman Conrad. Then, to advance the bill, Conrad must attach needed budget provisions to the bill make sure it can be funded later.

While signing off on this particular bill, Conrad added something called a “reserve fund” to Dodd’s bill which would prevent the bill from later being subjected to a “Budget Act point of order.”

In essence, by creating the reserve fund for Dodd’s housing bill, Conrad created a way to increase funding for the bill without question.

So Kent Conrad, self professed budget hawk, broke the budget to bail out mortage lenders of which Countrywide is the largest.  And that only cost Countrywide $10,000.