The Center for Responsible Lending spent $130,000 lobbying the federal government in the first quarter as it continued to press for stricter regulation of credit card fees and on other consumer issues, according to a disclosure report.

The Durham, N.C.-based advocacy group, which advocates tighter regulation of mortgage lenders, also lobbied Congress and federal agencies on creation of a new consumer financial protection agency as well as overdraft loans and payday loans.

In addition to the House and Senate, the group also had lobbying contacts with the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to a disclosure form filed April 20 with the Senate’s public records office.

The $130,000 the group spent in the January-March period is below the $180,000 spent in the first quarter of 2009 and the $175,000 expended in the fourth quarter of last year.

After all, it wasn’t Goldman that passed the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to make loans to people who could never pay them back. It wasn’t Goldman that created and supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it wasn’t Goldman that drove interest rates down to a below market level to cause a housing rush not seen since gold was found in them thar’ hills in the mid-1800s.

But if Senators were really interested in finding out the cause of the housing bubble, they would call one Eric Stein to the dais.

Mr. Stein is currently that Deputy Secretary of Treasury for consumer protection and is likely to head the vastly powerful Consumer Bureaucracy currently being pushed by big banks and Wall Street. But prior to his appointment to Treasury, Mr. Stein the bag man for the Center for Responsible Lending and its many Self Help subsidiaries, was singly responsible for more bad loans than all Goldman employees together. Working with billionaire con-man John Paulson, Stein lobbied to pass the laws at the root of the crisis and pressured banks to make bad loans that caused their portfolios to collapse when the economy turned. They were the Bonnie and Clyde of the subprime mortgage world.

 It’s time for a hearing focusing on the real cause of the housing bubble. It’s time to call Eric Stein up to the Hill for questioning under oath.

John Paulson is an interesting guy: He was one of a handful of hedge-fund managers who bet the mortgage-bond market would decline beginning in late 2006, and made billions from that bet. Here is where the SEC charges get interesting: Goldman allowed Paulson to help create the bond and to put some of the most risky mortgages in the portfolio, or mortgages that were most likely to default and tank the investment.

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Read the whole thing here. John Paulson hasn’t been charged in this affair, but it is interesting that he has such a significant supporting role. As Big Government readers know, Paulson is the largest single donor to the Center for Responsible Lending, a leftist advocacy group that is part of a complicated web of non-profits and private investment funds. A leading executive of CRL is now at the Treasury Department, overseeing the proposed “Consumer Financial Protection Agency.” Paulson is becoming Wall Street’s Zelig, who keeps showing up in very interesting places.

The SEC claims Goldman Sachs and one of its top officers misled investors by not disclosing that hedge fund manager John Pauson, who made billions betting against the housing market, selected the assets that went into a complex security called “Abacaus.”

Paulson & Co. is one of the world’s largest hedge funds, and paid Goldman roughly $15 million for structuring these deals in 2007.

John Paulson, one of the world’s richest hedge fund managers, has not been shy about spreading his wealth to Senate campaign coffers — or to the chairman of the committee that could directly affect his bottom line.

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As we reported, John Paulson invested $15 million in the Center for Responsible Lending, its largest single “gift” ever. An executive of that organization is now at the Treasury Department, helping to design the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. My, that’s handy for Paulson.

• “Profits”–There continues to be the glib assertion in many stories that the industry makes large profits.  I challenge any reporter to provide evidence of this.   The public companies report profits of between four and eight percent.

• Lobbying–The media covers all industry lobbying activity, including ours, as if there is something devious about it despite the fact that it’s  a constitutionally protected practice that is vital to democracy.   Our critics’ lobbying efforts are virtually unreported on.  Has there ever been a story about how many lobbyists Center for Responsible Lending has?  Or how many they hired after receiving money from billionaire hedge fund mogul John Paulson?  Of course not.

• Perspective–The payday lending industry makes $345 loans on average.   Its total revenues are just over $7 billion.  The industry has no macro impact on the economy.  Does this industry warrant the relentless coverage that it’s receiving?