Do GOP voters REALLY support credit card companies' gouging policies the way their GOP reps do?

[blm]

And why doesn't the Dem party and its spokespeople target this as an ELECTION ISSUE, especially when GOPs are using the economy disingenuously to strip votes from Dems?


November 20, 2009

A Gift to Credit Card Companies

Congress left consumers extremely vulnerable when it gave the credit card industry as long as 15 months to end the deceptive predatory practices outlawed in the spring in the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act. The credit card industry, which clearly wants to make a killing in the Christmas season, used this unnecessarily long grace period to intensify its predations, doubling interest rates on people who pay on time and driving up rates by an industry wide average of about 20 percent.

These ravages seemed not to have registered with Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican of Mississippi, who represents the nation’s poorest and most economically vulnerable state. On Wednesday, Mr. Cochran blocked a vote on a bill introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, that would have immediately frozen credit card interest rates and fees.

Mr. Cochran said through his office that he objected to the bill on behalf of unknown Republican colleagues who had their own objections. But it is difficult not to see his maneuver in yet another act of obeisance by Senate Republicans to the banking and credit card industries.

The same was true of Congress’s decision in May to delay implementation of the original credit card reform bill. Had the act gone into effect immediately, credit card issuers would have been forced to end many of the practices that have trapped millions of Americans in debt that they had no hope of repaying.
>>>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20fri3.html

[Wapsie B]

1. Also the Dems need to keep reminding people about repugs taking away the personal interest deduction

Just think how valuable that deduction would be for the average person this day and age. Another chapter in the rich legacy of Reagan. :eyes:

[democraticinsurgent]

4. good reminder, thanks

another forgotten middle class benefit sacrificed at the altar of corporatism.

made me also think of good old "float" which was wiped out a couple of years ago. another thing that provided a little help to a lot of people quite often...

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Guess so. The people in Mississippi love those 22.99% rates.

[ixion]

3. they support whomever gives them the most money

just like most dems do.

[endless october]

5. the ones who are carrying a balance don't.

the ones who aren't carrying a balance like to point out, "that's why i always pay it off at the end of the month. haven't paid interest on a credit card since 1962!"

wonder how they'll feel when their job gets outsourced or they get forced out due to ageism and have to carry a balance.

[blm]

11. but, now credit card companies are charging even higher added fees just to HAVE the card

whether it's used or not or whether the balance gets paid off or not.

[OHdem10]

6. Until the Democratic Party is in a position to actually campaign and

explain that the GOP is the party of big business and were founded
on this--therefore they will always support Business Interests first
nothing changes in D.C.

The Democrats have a problem: Their Conservatives and Centrists
hold similar stands.

The GOP has them over a barrel. They threaten to out the Democrats
as supporting Business over the "little guy" laying the Hypocrisy
Label on loud. The Democrats are supposed to represent the working
class and these specific Democrats serve business interests just
as much as we Republicans--they are hippocrits.

This was brought out in news reports several years back. This is
why Blue Dogs and Centrists are always so darned nervous every
election.

As long as Blue Dogs and Centrists vote with GOP most of the time
the GOP lays low but are always ready to pounce.

[blm]

12. Dean's DNC spokespeople would have stayed on top of the ISSUE for the party.

He treated it like the every day for FOUR YEARS job that it is.

[iceman66]

7. The reason they had Cochran in particular do this

is that they assume, probably correctly, that the voters in Mississippi will vote for anyone with an "R" after his name no matter what he does.

Republican senators from the Deep South can get away with just about anything because they have no serious competition come election time.

[blm]

8. Seems so simple to force this into the debate no matter how red the state.

Middle-income and working class people are losing money by the bucketfuls thanks to these policies.

[iceman66]

9. If Howard Dean was still running the DNC, we would see that

As things are now, I wouldn't be surprised to see Cochran run unopposed.

[blm]

10. I was thinking the same thing. Kaine seems to be following McAuliffe's sit-on-hands stewardship

instead of Dean's rebuild-infrastructure-and-protect-Dem-values-EVERYDAY leadership.

[Greyhound]

13. What I'm seeing here in scarlettville is a growing consensus among those of us

on the "far left" and the lower-income "right". We disagree on many, many, many issues but see the fiscal rape as immediate and important enough to agree on for now.

Watch out for a wave of "reasonable" republiks to start coming out of the woodwork...

[blm]

14. You'd think they'd realize by now that their 'leaders' use issues like abortion as smokescreens for

their actual job of servicing the financial elite.