Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) its June Porker of the Month for accepting a preferential mortgage deal from a company which stands to benefit from a mortgage bailout bill he is pushing through Congress.   

Sen. Dodd acknowledged receiving a “VIP” loan from Countrywide Financial Corporation, but denied that he knew the designation meant he would be receiving special privileges because of his position as the chairman of the Banking Committee.  Sen. Dodd is one of several current and former high-ranking officials, including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-S.D.) and former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, who was on a special “Friends of Angelo” list, named after Countrywide Financial Corporation Chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo.  According to published reports, Chairman Dodd’s special mortgage rate reduces his costs by $75,000 over the 30-year life of the mortgage.  Countrywide, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender and the largest lender of sub-prime mortgages, has lost billions of dollars in the mortgage crisis.  The company is slated to be purchased by Bank of America, so both companies stand to receive significant financial benefits from the bailout legislation. 

The unsettling revelations about Sen. Dodd’s sweetheart mortgage deal comes as the Senate Banking Committee is pushing a broad housing bill that features provisions that accrue to the benefit of large mortgage lenders while placing taxpayers at great financial risk.  The Senate version of the bill would offer lenders an opportunity to off load up to $300 billion of their riskiest loans onto the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), creating new loans that place 100 percent of the loan liability on the taxpayers.  The Congressional Budget Office projects that one-third of those refinanced mortgages will ultimately default.  FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery said on June 9, “We are not designed to become the federal lender of last resort, a mega-agency to subsidize bad loans.”

A flurry of requests for ethics investigations have emanated from all sides of the political spectrum, from the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to 28 members of the House Republican Study Committee and nine GOP senators.  The legislation currently under consideration was crafted primarily by Sen. Dodd and concerns have now arisen over conflicts of interests. 

For accepting special financial discounts from a mortgage company whose actions contributed directly to the current housing mess and then drafting a monstrous mortgage bailout bill that will dump billions of dollars worth of risky mortgages onto the backs of taxpayers while lending a helping hand to his corporate benefactor, CAGW names Sen. Christopher Dodd its June 2008 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.