Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama on Credit Card Reform

[Democrats_win]

From their websites:

Hillary’s Fair Credit for Families Agenda will:

-Immediately impose a 30 percent cap on annual interest rates for credit cards and work toward a lower cap.
-Prevent credit card companies from unfairly increasing interest rates, or charging interest or fees in unfair or unreasonable ways.
-Require that credit card companies provide clear, easy-to-understand information about credit card terms and fees.
-Create a new Financial Product Safety Commission to police credit products. Crack down on abusive payday lenders and refund anticipation loan providers.
-Empower communities to help families control their own financial destiny through improved financial literacy and better borrowing opportunities.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=5998

Barack Obama's plan:

Obama will establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card.

Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect Consumers: The Obama plan will:

-Ban Unilateral Changes
-Apply Interest Rate Increases Only to Future Debt
-Prohibit Interest on Fees
-Prohibit "Universal Defaults"
-Require Prompt and Fair Crediting of Cardholder Payments
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/#credit-cards

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More reasons to vote Democrat this November: Hillary or Obama

[Vinca]

1. A 30% cap? Is she serious? How about 18% - that's more reasonable.nt

[lligrd]

2. Oopsey, You Left Out Hillary's Vote For The 2001 Bankruptcy

bill. I'm certain that was an oversight. :sarcasm:

[DJ13]

3. Hillary is stoned if she thinks lower classes can afford 30%

Im glad she wants to "limit" CC rates to the same prevailing usurious interest rate those cards charge millions of consumers already.

:eyes:

[MojoMojoMojo]

4. OBAMA VOTED AGAINST A 30 % CAP ON INTEREST!!!

Hes not exactly protecting the consumer.
You are all correct that 30% is obscene.You better rethink why you are supporting Obama.
By the way Obama lied that Hillary voted for the Bankruptcy Bill .
She did vote on an earlier 2001 version that she amended to protect women and was never passed.It protected women from losing alimony and assets in divorce suits from deadbeats who wanted to declare bankruptcy.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Yeah...Obama had the sense to know that 30% was too high......

and voted no on that amendment,
and then Obama voted NO on the Bankruptcy bill.

Hillary voted for it in 2001, and didn't vote in 2005....
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/clinton-and-the-bankruptcy-law/


who are you trying to mislead? You think we are stupid round here?

[MojoMojoMojo]

6. So why did he not introduce a bill with a lower cap?

And why wont he put a cap in his proposal.Yes I think you are not smart.

[MojoMojoMojo]

7. Heres why

No Lobby or Pac money is purposely deceptive.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=F03

[romana]

8. Bankruptcy bill

Senator Clinton also apologized for her Bankruptcy Bill vote at the South Carolina debate.

[Jillian]

10. Obama voted against putting caps on credit cards.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00020

To limit the amount of interest that can be charged on any extension of credit to 30 percent.

Obama - Nay

[nonconformist]

12. So, better no cap at all instead of a cap that's too high? nt

[Marie26]

13. Please don't try to sell that line

He opposed the 30% cap & never introduced a lower cap. So now there's no cap at all.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. I'm glad. The law would have superceded the lower caps many states had already imposed. nt

[Marie26]

14. No, it wouldn't have. nt

[mrreowwr_kittty]

15. Yes, it would have. n/t

[Marie26]

17. How can anyone argue

w/such a detailed, sourced, factual post? The amendment specifically said that it would NOT supersede state law if states already had a lower interest rate.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4155217&mesg_id=4156427

[Jillian]

9. Oopsey - you left out the fact that Obama DOES NOT want a cap on credit card rates.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00020

Obama - NAY

[MojoMojoMojo]

16. But Obamas most egregious anticonsumer vote, Class Action

CLASS ACTION REFORM:

In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Long a desired objective of large corporations and President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts.

By contrast, Senators Clinton, Edwards and Kerry joined 23 others to vote against CAFA, noting the “reform” was a thinly-veiled “special interest extravaganza” that favored banking, creditors and other corporate interests. David Sirota, the former spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, commented on CAFA in the June 26, 2006 issue of The Nation, “Opposed by most major civil rights and consumer watchdog groups, this Big Business-backed legislation was sold to the public as a way to stop "frivolous" lawsuits. But everyone in Washington knew the bill's real objective was to protect corporate abusers.”

Nation contributor Dan Zegart noted further: “On its face, the class-action bill is mere procedural tinkering, transferring from state to federal court actions involving more than $5 million where any plaintiff is from a different state from the defendant company. But federal courts are much more hostile to class actions than their state counterparts; such cases tend to be rooted in the finer points of state law, in which federal judges are reluctant to dabble. And even if federal judges do take on these suits, with only 678 of them on the bench (compared with 9,200 state judges), already overburdened dockets will grow. Thus, the bill will make class actions – most of which involve discrimination, consumer fraud and wage-and-hour violations – all but impossible. One example: After forty lawsuits were filed against Wal-Mart for allegedly forcing employees to work "off the clock," four state courts certified these suits as class actions. Not a single federal court did so, although the practice probably involves hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide.”

Why would a civil rights lawyer knowingly make it harder for working-class people to have their day in court, in effect shutting off avenues of redress?
http://quartz.he.net/~beyondch/news/index.php?itemid=5413