Dodd: Government bears blame for loan woes

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd said Wednesday that regulators bear some responsibility for problems in the sub-prime mortgage sector and that he plans to call them before the committee for questioning.

“That’s what’s made me angry here -- that the regulators apparently have not been doing as good a job as I think they should have been doing,” Dodd (D-Conn.) told reporters after speaking at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference on market competitiveness. He said regulators should help explain “how we got to this point.”

Dodd, a presidential candidate from a state with many hedge funds and insurers, has not set a hearing date.

Also Wednesday, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson called on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and private banks to support forbearance to sub-prime mortgage borrowers who are having trouble making their payments.

“We are asking banks, we are asking others, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to do forbearance,” Jackson told members of the House Financial Services Committee. “We don’t have the powers to dictate to them what they should do, but we are doing everything in our power.”