Getting it from all sides
April 8, 2009 | federal legislation, industry, regulation | Comments (0)Rep. Louis Gutierrez (D-IL) is opposed by payday lenders for offering too tough a bill and now is attacked from the Left for not offering a tough-enough bill. From the story:
At a hearing on the bill last Thursday, Gutierrez said his proposal, while “not a cure-all,” goes a long way to protect consumers from abusive lending practices. “The current state of affairs for these consumers is unacceptable,” he said, “and Congress would be derelict in its duties if we allowed them to remain unprotected from abusive and predatory lending.”
Yet consumer advocates, one of whom testified before the panel, maintain that Gutierrez’s bill is worse than doing nothing. Not only is it punched full of loopholes, they argue, but it effectively embraces a lending system in which triple-digit interest rates are deemed business as usual. Currently, regulation of the payday lending industry is almost exclusively up to states.
The Payday Pundit worked on Capitol Hill for many years. It’s tough to govern because most governing is done from the middle. That means you get it from both sides.
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