Nevada's District 2 Representative, Republican Dean Heller
Lisa Mascaro wrote in today’s Las Vegas Sun:
Congress is hoping to do for credit card borrowers this week what it could not accomplish for homeowners: Sock it to the banks that have become targets of so much populist anger about the nation’s sorry state of financial affairs. [Las Vegas Sun]
Legislation is meandering its way through Congress to end credit card companies from random interest rate hikes, exorbitant fees and other practices — such as mailing the statement two weeks before the due date.
The bill is popular. The legislation passed the House and is on its way to passage in the Senate. Almost two-thirds of the House Republicans joined an unusual bipartisan vote. Democratic Representatives Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus voted for the bill. Republican Representative Dean Heller was among 69 Republicans voting no.
President Barack Obama wants the bill on his desk by Memorial Day.
Credit card reform has all the makings of a political winner. One woman wrote to Nevada Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid to complain about the bank raising her credit card interest rate from 9.5 percent to 17.5 percent. “ ‘I feel like I am being robbed by a company that my tax dollars are trying to bail out,’ ” Reid quoted from her letter.
Passage of the credit card bill is increasingly a sideshow as the real victory this week will come if Republicans gain traction on any of the many obstacles they have thrown in the path of the Obama administration’s run of legislative successes.
Last week, it was guns.
One of the many Senate amendments to the credit card bill would allow licensed firearms to be taken into national parks — a policy put in place in the waning days of the Bush administration that Obama may reverse. It passed, with Reid and Republican Sen. John Ensign voting yes.
Ensign, for example, just back from a day trip to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, escalated criticism of Obama’s plan to close the camp, tapping into the popular unease over terror suspects being relocated to U.S. soil.
The credit card bill is scheduled for a vote Tuesday. Banks continue fighting the bill, warning that it will raise the costs of borrowing and tighten credit.
Banks made the same argument as they helped defeat housing legislation last month that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages, a provision that failed in part because there was never much popular support.
Kathleen Keest, a senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, is watching the finish line.
“This makes a boatload of difference to people’s wallets,” Keest said. Interest rates were raised by 17 percent on average in 2008, costing the average borrower with $10,000 in debt $1,800. “That’s a lot of money, more than is justified,” she said.
“This makes a boatload of difference to people’s wallets,” Keest said. Interest rates were raised by 17 percent on average in 2008, costing the average borrower with $10,000 in debt $1,800. “That’s a lot of money, more than is justified,” she said.
One person wrote:
Anyone notice the flood of “credit card agreement modification” notices that have come out in the last few months? I say that they have completely countered whatever obama wants in this bill.
Whatever Obama does is dwarfed by what individuals can do on their own. Credit card companies, banks, cell phone companies, and insurance companies are very untrustworthy in general in my opinion, and I just don’t trust any of them. I use them as minimally as I possibly can. If other people did the same, they would CHANGE on their own.
Look at all the pain and suffering the credit cards have wreaked in our economy. How about we just really CUT BACK ON THEIR USE VOLUNTARILY. The card companies are just encouraging us to take the ‘free’ money and then stick it to us once we are in debt.
I recently paid off a Chase card after they charged me $39 late fee for being $3 too low on a minimum payment. They refused to listen to reason and remove the ridiculous charge. I told the gentleman it would NEVER happen again (as I was cutting up the card in small pieces).
Interesting that in about a month I get this letter asking me they noticed I paid off the card and was their something WRONG? Too late, CHASE, you lost a customer forever. My point is that the way to exercise consumer power is to STOP using their product.
That the Republicans remain hostile to credit card reform boggles my mind. It is legislation like the credit card reform that highlights the dichotomy between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Democrats look out for people. Republicans look out for business, especially BIG business. And just look at the vote of Dean Heller. Anti people. Pro business.
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