We’ll try to get more information about what kind of bill gets introduced.  This article only mentions it as an agenda item for Democrats.  

Great letter in today’s Des Moines Register: 

If used responsibly, there are many cases in which these short-term loans can be a better solution than the alternatives. While a payday loan costs $15 for the two-week period, alternatives such as credit-card late fees and overdrawing on a checking account can cost between $30 and $60.

You have to look only to the recent subprime-mortgage crisis to see the negative effects of economic illiteracy. Legislators should focus more on programs that help constituents understand personal finances. That way, borrowers could learn how to make smart financial choices and still have the most possible options available to them.

Des Moines, Iowa pawnshops are hurting while the rest of the nations pawnbrokers are raking it in.  From the story in the Des Moines Register: 

A bad economy is supposed to be a boom time for pawnshops, a time when they’re supposed to be filled with cash-strapped customers seeking either to borrow against their belongings or to snatch up bargains on hocked items that others left. But local pawnbrokers said a nationwide boom in sales in their industry so far has failed to make it to Des Moines.

“We’re not going hungry,” said Paul Lamunyon, an employee at the Pawn Store, 30th Street and Douglas Avenue in Des Moines. “But we’re not buying Cadillacs.”

Nobody’s buying Cadillacs.  If people were, GM wouldn’t need a  bailout. 

The Center for Consumer Freedom op-ed in the Des Moines Register attracted some good comments, including these: 

All Americans should have a choice as to how they can borrow money. Govt needs to stop trying to protect people from themselves by limiting any and all options someone has. I don’t have any banks around me that if I need a quick $100 I can go to and get it. I have overdraft but they charge me money to transfer the money into my account and then an “administative fee”. The small fee I am charged from a payday lender is actually cheaper in the end. We don’t tell people how many credit cards they can have and people certainly can run up thousands of dollars in that debt. The credit card companies have their hands deeper into the politicians pockets though so they win in the end. If they can get rid of pay day lenders, more people will be forced to run up credit cards and then they win. Absolutely ridiculous!!!!

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The matter of payday loans is a choice. A right to choose which option is best for you when weighing alternatives. $15 per $100 to me is a better option than late fees with a credit card or a bounced check fee. I agree with letting options exist! Let people make the best choice for them and if it is a payday loan they should have that right.

In an op-ed in today’s Des Moines Register, Tim Miller of the Center for Consumer Freedom, writes:

Eliminating a major short-term credit option for financially stressed adults is hardly an act of mercy. We should be helping Americans find more debt-management options – not taking them off the table.