THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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WASHINGTON - Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd says Congress is working quickly to prevent a "meltdown" in the U.S. financial system.

Dodd says the United States may be "days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system" and that's why quick action from Congress is needed.

Dodd said today that Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are coming together to support the Bush administration's developing plan to buy up bad debt from financial institutions and get the credit system working again.

Dodd told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the nation's credit is seizing up and people can't get loans.

Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, predicts the new bailout plan will cost at least half a trillion dollars.

Shelby says the nation has "been lurching from one crisis to another."

Both veteran legislators say this is the most serious financial crisis they've seen in their years in Congress.