From today’s Columbus Dispatch:
”Our economy cannot afford to give up jobs like this industry provides when there was ample room to compromise to keep the industry going,” said Daniel Navin, the chamber’s{Chamber of Commerce} assistant vice president of tax and economic policy.
“This bill, in my estimation, neither does anything positive for the consumer and certainly, by acclimation, does a great deal of harm to the paydaylending industry,” Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, told his colleagues.
”You can blame it on Bill Harris. He’s the one who made the decision in the caucus not to work with us,” said W. Allan Jones, CEO of Tennessee-based Check into Cash, which operates 92 stores in Ohio. “I guess up here, you all just need one guy.”
“Anyone who believes that the Small Loan Act is our savior knows nothing about finance and even less about what our customers want,” said James Frauenberg II, senior vice president of Dublin-based CheckSmart, which operates 105 stores in Ohio.
And while we’re at it, props to Jim Siegel at the Dispatch for providing the fairest, most balanced coverage of the Ohio payday lending fight over the last three weeks. We’ve beaten up on a lot of Ohio reporters, so it’s only fair to praise the good ones.