Our guest blogger is Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

As you are no doubt aware, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and I sent a letter to President Bush a little over a week ago calling for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson’s resignation. Earlier today he announced his resignation. While a shift in the Administration at such a critical time is never optimal, I do believe it was the right thing to do.

In this time of economic crisis and instability in the housing market, it is more important than ever that we have a HUD Secretary who is fully committed to addressing the challenges facing our economy. Given that Secretary Jackson is currently the subject of ongoing investigations into alleged misconduct at HUD, it became clear to me over the past few weeks and months that these investigations have been a distraction at a time when the HUD Secretary must devote his undivided attention to helping American homeowners.

Now, more than ever, we need a HUD Secretary who can devote his full energy to solving our nation’s housing crisis. It is my hope that the new HUD Secretary the President appoints will be ready and anxious to tackle the problems in our housing market through collaboration with the Senate Banking Committee and other federal entities. We need all hands on deck to address the problems of the mortgage industry and the Americans whose budgets are being stretched to the limit by rising mortgage payments and cost-of-living increases. New leadership at HUD will help renew our focus on the country’s economic problems, and aid our attempts to restore confidence in the housing market.

Thanks again for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you here today, and I look forward to contributing in the future.

– Chris Dodd

Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, Domestic Policy Advisor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Inside the Beltway, the housing crisis is finally hitting home: the value of Ben Bernanke’s home has fallen by $250,000 in the last few years.

Maybe that’s why Bush officials are finally considering steps to rescue struggling homeowners. According to today’s Washington Post, their idea is to move families into new, more affordable mortgages backed by public funds, similar to proposals from Rep. Barney Frank and the Center for American Progress.

Details aren’t available for a week or longer, and the plan is expected to help far fewer families than the 2 million reached by the Frank plan. Still, it’s an encouraging sign the Bush officials are finally recognizing the need to get beyond conservative ideology.

So when will John McCain get on board? Last week Sen. McCain pleaded with lenders to voluntarily help homeowners – like Bush officials have tried unsuccessfully for more than six months. If he stays on his current schedule, we can expect him a real housing plan sometime around September.

Our guest blogger is Robert Gordon, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In a nice sequel to Bob Novak’s proposal that John McCain cut the payroll tax, Bill Kristol today writes that McCain might “suggest taxing ‘carried interest’* as ordinary income, if only to watch the fur fly among hedge-fund fat cats.”

This is a good idea that conservatives hated less than a year ago. Grover Norquist said “it’s crystal clear” that taxing carried interest “violates the Federal Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” Paul Weyrich called the idea “a huge tax increase.” And the Club for Growth said it was a “tax hike” and a “war on prosperity.”

John McCain has waffled on “no new taxes,” but he has regularly said that he won’t propose any tax hikes. Under the standard conservative definition, this is a tax hike. Yet Kristol is urging him to consider it…. probably because McCain’s true conservative tax plan will be spectacularly unappealing for most voters.

More gymnastics to come.

*Carried interest is the share of profits that is earned by a hedge fund manager without a corresponding ownership stake in the hedge fund. Carried interest is usually the manager’s core compensation, but it is taxed at the lower capital gains rate, not the ordinary income rate.