Congress: Tackling credit cards

Posted: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:15 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Congress, Economy

The New York Times writes about the Senate’s effort to tackle credit card reform. “The growing momentum behind the credit card crackdown was in marked contrast to the Senate decision last week to bow to the banking industry and reject a plan to allow bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages of struggling homeowners. The difference shows that lawmakers see public antagonism to credit card companies as running deep enough to offset even such a powerful lobbying interest. The Senate bill does not cap or freeze interest rates, as some advocates have said is warranted. But it goes farther than a measure already easily passed by the House in imposing an array of new restrictions on credit card companies.”

Climate change legislation coming out of committee next week: "House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders on Tuesday night announced a new agreement on a contentious climate change bill, assuaging the concerns of enough committee Democrats to get the bill out of committee, they said. 'We’re going to go to markup on Monday with an expectation that we’re going to finish at the end of next week our energy bill,' Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced on Tuesday night. 'I expect that we’re going to have the votes in committee next week to pass this bill out.'... [A] number of issues still remained to be worked out, but said they have struck a deal on the highest hurdle of how strenuously to limit carbon emissions, overcoming the objections of coal-state Democrat Rick Boucher (D-Va.)."

EMAIL THIS

Comments

The credit card companies are playing games with all of us! I have two Bank of America cards [one visa one mastercard], that had 7.9% interest rates on them for years. All of a sudden, after I paid off a balance I carried for a few months, the company upped my interest rates on both cards to 19.9% event though my FICO score is in the upper 700s! I want to get rid of those cards, but my FICO score will go down if I do so and replace them with new cards, because the longer you show you have a specific credit card with no negative history, the higher your score...once you get rid of that card, your score goes down. And, the company won't reduce my interest rates. They even said they may reduce my credit limit, which will also negatively affect my FICO score which means I will have to pay higher interest rates on future loans, like a mortgage! This is a scam! And the Obama administration is right in taking this head on!

pat huntington ny (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:23 AM)

Yep the Conservadems had better read the writing on the wall of public opinion rather than be beholden to big banking's criminals. Time to force the big banks to stop their credit card abuse, if they're too stupid to know who to give credit cards to and how much credit to extend then they only have themselves to blame for the losses.

Good to hear that Climate Change legislation is moving forward, something sorely needed the past 8 years but never passed. Time for real science to lead the way instead of the fools of faith.

You know it doesn't matter what Nancy Pelosi knew or didn't know about torture because she couldn't talk about it anyway back then when it mattered and couldn't just say no. Just a tactic of the guilty to try to shift the blame.

Climate Change Legislation Now!

Eric, Salinas, CA (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:28 AM)

The latest Pelosi/interrogation news: "The No. 2 Democrat in the House on Tuesday said Americans should be provided answers on what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about interrogations of suspected terrorists and when she knew about it," The Hill reports. "But he also indicated that those answers might give the embattled Speaker political cover."

Cheney actually admitted in an interview that Pelosi didn't know that interrogations (waterboarding)had, (past tense) been used on detainees. Congress wasn't notified prior to interrigoations. There is a big difference here, it appears that they notified Congress following the use of waterboarding.

They are actually digging a deeper ditch for themselves. They even had the nerve to threghten the Attorney General with prior Administration investigations, attempted to bully him. Please Mr. Cheney, keep up the press sweep. The more you talk the deeper you dig.

Anita, Birmingham, Alabama (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:33 AM)

>>>The latest Pelosi/interrogation news: "The No. 2 Democrat in the House on Tuesday said Americans should be provided answers on what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about interrogations of suspected terrorists and when she knew about it," The Hill reports. "But he also indicated that those answers might give the embattled Speaker political cover."
==========
It's sad that the righties who post here don't seem to get it. They think "if you investigate our people, we should investigate yours as well." To quote Cheney, "So?" Investigate away. This isn't about right vs. left, but right vs. wrong. As much as I hope otherwise, if Pelosi or any other Democrat is involved in these "enhanced interrogations", or knew about them and were under legal obligation to do something about them and didn't, then they are JUST AS GUILTY as Bush/Cheney and any other Republican who was involved. Personally, anyone shown to have broken the law in the torture of prisoners, whether it's through action or inaction, should be prosecuted and put in jail. Even Barack Obama. If it ever came out that he was directly involved, I'd be calling for his impeachment just as loudly as if it were Bush. Again, this isn't about right vs. left, it's about right vs. wrong.

http://jawillie.blog.com

jawillie, Philadelphia, PA. (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:45 AM)

You can't keep Americans from over-spending and maxing out their credit cards when Obama himself has maxed out America's credit.

Barackababble is talking out both sides of his mouth .. again.

Fortunate Son (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:02 AM)

Credit cards started out as a convenient way to pay for things when one didn't have the cash or needed a small loan to cover something like emergency car repairs but has evolved into the main means of spending for some people. The banks have taken advantage of this and their greed plus the risk posed by some borrowers has created the big mess we have now. Restricting the card issuers who will in turn restrict borrowers should work out well. It will restore the original purpose for the cards.

Finally Congress is discussing climate change. I am sure that what they come out with in the end will be a little watered down but it is a step in the right direction. Tweaking it later as needed will likely be required.

It will be interesting to see how Speaker Pelosi handles the now declassified information regarding waterboarding and other forms of torture to be used in interrogation of prisoners.

eagle1776 (Sent Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:08 AM)

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.):

Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private) Remember me?

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=1930412