Dodd: financial reform bill would have stopped Goldman Sachs

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday said his financial reform legislation would have stopped Goldman Sachs from misleading investors on mortgage-backed securities that eventually failed and helped to bring down the overall economy. 

"There is no doubt in my mind, our bill would have prevented that kind of events from happening, in my view," he told reporters. "And that's what the public needs to know: by not enacting our legislation -- by [Republicans] filibustering it, stopping it -- we leave the American public vulnerable once again [to] the kind of shenanigans that occurred in our large financial institutions across this country."

Dodd also fired back against Republican claims that his bill would continue to bailout larger companies that were on the verge of collapse. 

"Our Republican friends are entitled to their own opinions, that is something that you have a great abundance around here, but on one is entitled to their own set of facts," he said, adding, "our bill ends too big to fail, bailouts end forever. Management is fired, shareholders lose, creditors lose, there is a liquidation of assets." 

Dodd's reform bill is expected to be debated on the floor this week with the goal of completing work on it by the end of the month.