While I am pretty disgusted with Congressional Democrats right now, I have to give credit where it is due. The House passed the Credit Card Reform Bill today and it will be sent to Obama’s desk and signed into law. The bill isn’t all it could be, but it’s solid piece of progressive legislation.
The landmark credit card legislation will force the $960 billion card industry to reinvent itself and consumers to rethink the way they use plastic.
The bill will prohibit card companies from raising interest rates on existing balances unless the borrower is at least 60 days late. If the cardholder pays on time for the following six months, the company would have to restore the original rate. On cards with more than one interest rate, issuers will have to apply payments first to the debts with the highest rates, which would help borrowers pay off their cards more quickly.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Tuesday said the bill “will help create a more fair, transparent and simple consumer credit market.”
…The bill would also restrict the ability of college students to get credit cards and require card companies to make contracts easier to understand and available online.
It would also codify changes already made by the Federal Reserve. In December, the Fed banned certain unfair and deceptive practices. But those do not go into effect until July 2010.
The legislation passed today, which goes farther than the Fed’s new rules, would become effective nine months after signing.
You can get a better sense for the provisions in the bill here.
did the bill have a gun amendment attached?
Obama should veto it. I’m sorry, but next time I go camping in Sequoia or Joshua Tree National Park, I don’t want to have to deal with gun-toting loons in the campsite next to me.
And I really don’t look forward to the future news reports of increased killings of wildlife and park rangers thanks to this Coburn amendment.
Obama should veto the bill and tell Congress to send him a clean bill.
Isn’t this also the bill which will allow folks to bring their AK-47’s into national parks?
http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/20/harry-reid-punkd-by-tom-coburn-ak-47s-now-welcome-in-yosemite/
While I agree they did something right (though not yet wonderful) with the credit card usurers, they let the crazys attach a poison pill we’ll have to live with.
It’s all nuts.
Not that the NRA droolers were not carrying everywhere there aren’t metal detectors anyway.
yes.
Personally, I don’t care about this. The law does not saw that the Sec. of Interior cannot make a regulation against discharging a weapon. People traverse National Parks all the time on their way to work or even to go hunting.
Yeeeeee-haw!!! Duz that mean I kin take my AR-15 and all that ammo i bin stashin’ away and go to Yallerstone and shoot me some critters now?
it would seem so.
That’s what I thought.
Courtesy of Asshat Harry!
so let us see. a one day record – and the day aint over yet.
the punk dems voted down funds that the dem president requested in order to close down the horror at guantanamo.
the punks then moved on and voted to support a bill that included an amendment that permits the effing nutjobs to carry their guns into the national parks.
not bad for one day.(so far)
I’ve been suspecting that lately the dems are basically just like the Republicans except they pretend to be progressive for years now. Unfortunately, they are not proving my suspicions wrong š
It’s sad, but i hope the recession takes many mansions away with it.
It seems to have no cap on interest rates, right? That’s a major flaw, but otherwise it fixes some very outrageous exploitation. Nice half-cup of water as we crawl through the desert where the Dem Congress’s garden of change was supposed to go in.
I was very disappointed that the cap on interest was not passed, I think that was the most important thing to do re. credit cards, however all of this will have the end result that people will think twice about using easy credit.
My own family has been hit with the high rates to the point they can no longer pay them, bankruptcy may be the next step. something serious has to be done about the interest rate tho, I still do believe.