Outraged over the inaction on the part of the Bush Administration to respond aggressively to the mortgage crisis, Sen. Chris Dodd today announced that he will call for the reform of a part of the current bankruptcy law which prevents judges from aiding those in default of their loans by restructuring their payments. Dodd also said that he planned to call for a repeal of other anti-consumer provisions enacted in recent bankruptcy "reform" efforts and in the coming weeks will unveil his own bankruptcy reform plan that protects consumers, not creditors.
Yesterday, The New York Times editorialized about the housing market, saying that for the first time since the Carter Administration, homeownership is set to decline under President Bush's tenure, and Congress and the President need to work on bankruptcy reform legislation to avoid mass foreclosures and a complete collapse of the housing market.
"It's completely unacceptable to sit on the sidelines while millions of Americans are losing their homes, and with it, their piece of the American Dream," said Dodd. "While it's clear that the Administration thinks it is already doing enough to stem the tide of this problem, I would guess the people who lost their homes while President Bush was in office would beg to differ. As a Senator and Banking Committee Chairman, I am doing all I can to help families across the country at risk of losing their homes. But the President has the ultimate authority to act now to stop the market from collapsing, and millions of American families from losing their homes. His dereliction to do so is unconscionable."
Last weekend in Iowa, Senator Dodd, who also chairs the Senate's Banking, House and Urban Affairs Committee, released his homeownership plan, which would, among other things, increase opportunities for homeownership by stabilizing the mortgage and financial markets and protect homeowners from unscrupulous lenders and provide assistance to victims of predatory loans to help them keep their homes.
