Chris Dodd: “2009 could be one of the worst years on record for credit card consumers.”

I had hoped we'd get in the lame duck session to the ratification of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement and the Panamanian Free Trade Agreement.

Maybe we ought to be spending a little more time looking at the relationships at that level.

The truth is that the catastrophe was years in the making caused by regulatory negligence and Wall Street gambling.

But, whether such a temptation is motivated by a noble desire to speed up the legislative process or by pure political expedience, I believe such changes would be unwise. To my fellow Senators who have never served a day in the minority, I…