Obama voted against a 30 percent cap on credit card interest. Why?

[jackson_dem]

First I must preface this by saying how delighted I was to see that smug character finally be subject to the same flyspecking of voting records game he has played for a year against Edwards and Hillary. Obama loves to dish it out but apparently can't take it.

Obama claims he voted against the cap because he thought it was too high. Lemme get this straight. You think a limit is too high. You vote against that limit. That means, if your argument carries the day, there is no limit.

[Occam Bandage]

1. Because he thought it was too high, and might supersede lower state limits.

[itsrobert]

13. Why would it supersede state law for a lower rate?

The Federal Law for DUI is .10 BrAC; Many states have laws lot lower than that.

[MH1]

17. This was a poorly written amendment that would have worked differently

John Kerry issued a clear statement at the time that the reason he voted against the amendment was because it could supersede existing lower state limits.

[Marie26]

36. Federal law pre-empts state law

on consumer law issues. So even if a state wanted to impose stricter usury laws to restrain the credit card companies, they can't. The credit card company can incorporate in a different state w/high interest rates, and then impose that rate on everyone in the country. All the CC companies are located in S. Dakota, which has NO restriction on interest rates, and that gives them the right to charge 40%+ default rates to consumers around the country. This is KEY to the success of the credit industry over the last 10 years. The only way to stop this (in the legislature) is to enact a national cap on interest rates. I think it's appalling that Obama aligned w/the credit card industry on this amendment.

[Occam Bandage]

Okay, so if federal law pre-empts state law,

then what is the problem with voting against an unacceptably high cap, while voting in favor of other caps?

[Marie26]

48. Because then there's no cap at all.

Without a federal limit, individual states can create laws that have no limit on interest fees, no consumer protection at all. Then, any bank/cc company located in that state can export & impose those laws on everyone else in the country. In the Marquette decision, the SC said that this is all legal & constitutional. This is what S. Dakota & Delaware have done. They made these weak consumer laws, lifted all usury laws, etc. in order to attract corporations & banks to their state. And it worked. The credit card companies flocked to those states, because they knew that would let them impose these usurious interest rates across the country. That's why you can have a 35% interest rate on your CC, even if your state has usury laws that forbid high interest rates. The only way to stop this is if the US Congress sets a national limit on interest rates.

[MH1]

14. This is too complex for some, I am afraid

Which is exactly how the game of politics is played, shame that it is.

Several states had lower limits in place. This amendment would have superseded those lower limits with a higher limit.

Therefore,

BAD AMENDMENT.

Barack Obama and John Kerry made the RIGHT VOTE.

[jackson_dem]

20. We are playing Obama-style politics. Only we are doing it to St. Obama this time. Whats the matter?

[Occam Bandage]

22. No, you're misleading and then blaming it on Obama.

[jackson_dem]

28. Like the Obama campaign has done with Edwards and Hillary

:)

[Occam Bandage]

30. Anyone can point to things any candidate has said

that one disagrees with and say, "oh, look, they're distorting and lying now." If you see bullshit and are offended, the solution is not to add more bullshit.

[jackson_dem]

33. Obamites have swiftboated Edwards for a year. Now it is time for us to flyspeck Obama's record

hillary really damaged Obama last night by doing so.

[Occam Bandage]

35. Again, there is a difference between protesting bullshit and spewing bullshit.

(Flyspeck flyspeck flyspeck? Did you learn a new word today or what?)

[Scriptor Ignotus]

62. so now you admit you're just making up bullshit?

Jerome Corsi I presume?

[karynnj]

74. so HRC and JRE can vote for a similar bill in 2001

then gang up on Obama voting with Durbin, Leahy, Wyden and Kerry against a poorly written amendment. (If Leahy says it was poorly written, it likely was.)

Edwards was not swiftboated by Obama supporters or anybody. Give me some examples of lies told. It is fair to state what his record was.

[madmunchie]

78. Too bad even people on DU don't get this. It seems to always boil down to simple answers for simple

minded.

[depakid]

82. Do you NOT understand federal preemption?

If you think that the Dayton Amendment was a "bad amendment" perhaps you might explain why that is?

Seems to me the amendment would have set a precedent, and that down the line, Congress could have acted far more easily to reign in usury, despite the POS states like Delaware & North Dakota.

Indeed, it would seem to me that's precisely the sort of thing the commerce clause is all about.

[Ravy]

80. If that were true, why were the Republicans, to a person, against the cap? nt

[MethuenProgressive]

2. Cuz he couldn't vote "Present"

:shrug:

[madmunchie]

79. Yeah, that .03775% of "present" votes really shows how bad his record really is.

I mean one state's voting strategy cannot differ from the Federal voting strategy now can it?

[Levgreee]

3. Because if you reach a settlement, then the issue begins to get dismissed

some may prefer to keep the issue active, and not give in to some ineffective bargain... instead, keep working for an effective proposal.

[AtomicKitten]

4. He answered your question last night in the debate.

It appears you are more interested in attacking than gleaning actual information.

[jackson_dem]

9. Did he do anything to lower the cap? Or was it just another excuse?

[Occam Bandage]

19. Obama voted for ten other amendments to lower the cap, but they all failed.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Because he wanted it lower........which is why

He voted NO on the Bill when it counted.

So what about Hillary and Edwards? Why did they both vote FOR the Bankrupcy act?

[jackson_dem]

8. That has been answered a a bajillion times. It is time to flyspeck Obama's record

What is the matter? Obamites, like Obami, don't like their game being played toward St. Obama? :shrug:

[MH1]

23. Flyspeck away on this one - OBAMA MADE THE RIGHT VOTE.

[Marie26]

63. ... for MBNA. nt

[MagsDem]

18. He voted for no limit for the credit card companies

[Occam Bandage]

21. No, he voted against raising their limit in many states.

[MagsDem]

40. That's completely untrue

There was nothing in the bill that prevented any such thing.

[Occam Bandage]

49. Many Senators, Kerry and Obama included, disagreed with your assuredly-valid legal opinion.

[jackson_dem]

52. Since when do what other Senators think matter in the Obama game of flyspecking votes?

[Occam Bandage]

54. Disagreeing with your candidate's interpretation is not the same as failure to recognize

that your candidate claims extenuating factors.

[FrenchieCat]

26. No, he voted against a bill that would have established limits no higher than 30%

and that wasn't reasonable.

Try again.

[MagsDem]

42. So he preferred they not have any limits at all?

[Occam Bandage]

50. He voted for 10 amendments that would have added a cap.

[babylonsister]

6. Baloney. But nice try. He wasn't willing to settle for such a high cap, and

was in good company with this decision.

Wouldn't hurt you to do a bit of research before casting stones.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4148009

[Occam Bandage]

7. I find this attack hilarious, especially given that the people making it

were the same ones who were "very concerned" Obama might compromise too much with the Republicans. Suddenly, it's Oh my God Obama refused to compromise on this issue!"

[Perky]

10. Duh... He thought it was too high

[jackson_dem]

12. Did he do anything to lower it? As Hillary noted, Obama always has an "explanation"

[Levgreee]

27. Obama always has an "explanation" because

Hilary attacks him on ambiguous issues, where you actually need an explanation. You wouldn't need any explanation on a simple yes or no question, but Hilary doesn't go for those topics, she goes for the ones that can be spun, because they are more complex, more nuanced.

[jackson_dem]

31. Bull. His explanation on Peru trade was very bogus

[Occam Bandage]

34. Those goalpoasts must be very heavy.

[Perky]

56. Wait a minute. Hillary voted for the cap to be 30%

WHere was she on lowering the rate?

[Marie26]

61. Changing the maximum interest rate from NO limit

to a 30% limit is lowering the rate.

[ProSense]

11. Here:

BS, Senator Clinton

[jackson_dem]

15. Wait a minute, ProSense

Are you suggesting that when we flyspeck a few votes out of hundreds we need to analyze the reason for the vote, the context, the legislative history and the like?

[ProSense]

24. I'm suggesting that Hillary is distorting the facts. n/t

[jackson_dem]

29. ProSense is it sensible to look at those things, as well as who else voted for it?

[flpoljunkie]

16. The amendment would have superceded state usury laws where some states have lower interest ceilings.

The bill was rushed to the floor by Senator Mark Dayton, an early Hillary Clinton supporter, by the way. It was soundly defeated by a a vote of 24-74 with some of the leading liberal Senators voting against it--John Kerry among them.

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

[jackson_dem]

25. Wait a minute. You are suggesting we need to look at who else voted with a given Senator?

My, my, how things change in ObamaWorld. Did you people ever do this when you flyspecked Edwards and Hillary? Guess whose trade record is identical to Edwards', for example?

[Occam Bandage]

32. This is a rather pathetic turnaround, even for you.

You: "OBAMA DID A BAD THING"
Everyone else: "No."
You: "PROVE IT"
Everyone else: "Sure. Here are links."
You: UM...I'M ONLY BEING UNFAIR BECAUSE I THINK YOU ARE UNFAIR TO OTHER PEOPLE.

[burythehatchet]

39. give it time. The clone army is being rebuilt, each time with a little less quality control

[jackson_dem]

44. Obamites are so blinded by their self-righteousness they are missing the point here

Obamites are, like their candidate, singing a very different tune when it comes to flyspecking St. Obama's record. No such probing of the context of votes Obama's campaign and his netroots supporters have flyspecked from Edwards and Obama ever occurred.

[Occam Bandage]

47. What makes you think

that we have not looked at the context of Edwards/Clinton's votes? Because John Edwards claimed we didn't?

[Marie26]

67. On consumer issues,

look at Chris Dodd's vote. He's consistently spoken out about the power of the credit card industry & has been one of the (few) Senators to oppose their practices. Dodd voted for this amendment - that tells me it was a good one.

[Marie26]

41. State usury laws are already

superceded by the federal pre-emption doctrine.

[Marie26]

58. So, Clinton voted for it?

Good. HOW did Obama get a rep. for being against corporations w/votes like this?

"Barack Obama "talked the populist talk" last night, lumping in credit card companies as targets of his economic rescue plans. But, in his first year in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Obama voted "Nay" on the Dayton Amendment to the 2005 bankruptcy bill that would freeze credit card interest rates at no higher than 30%. Obama sided with credit card companies over our nation's bedrock middle-class families as well as young adults susceptible to the companies' alluring, deceptive marketing.

That specific vote garnered Obama the admiration of his many corporate donors who find him "reasonable." After all, credit card companies comprise his second largest donor bloc. Harper's magazine noted in "Barack Obama Inc.: The birth of a Washington machine" that "it is also startling to see how quickly Obama's senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. ..."


By the way, Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the cap on predatory credit card interest rates.

http://mydd.com/story/2008/1/16/14853/9001

"Obama, who made a strong floor speech in opposition to the 2005 bankruptcy bill, nonetheless voted against a key amendment that would have put a cap of 30 percent on interest rates. Financial firms, according to Ken Silverstein's much-discussed Harper's article "Barack Obama Inc.," "constitute Obama's second biggest single bloc of donors." You'll find nary a word about the debt crisis on his campaign web site."

Mother Jones: Camaign Contributions from Credit Card Companies? Priceless -ttp://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/07/campaign_contributions_credit_card_companies.html


Very good Harper's article on this & other issues -

"Barack Obama Inc.: The birth of a Washington machine" -
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275

[MH1]

59. You are still confused about the Dayton Amendment?

That amendment in NO WAY was going to hurt the credit card industry, it was going to HELP them, because some uppity states were setting lower limits, and this amendment would do away with that.

I know it's hard but please try to grasp that corporations play these games with legislation all the time. "Clear Skies Act"? "Healthy Forests"? "Wise Use" movement? This is the same shit, different industry, that's all.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4155217&mesg_id=4155300

[Marie26]

60. No, sorry

This is one area I do know something about. State usury laws are useless, because the CC companies can get around them by incorporating in another state. So if an uppity state set lower limits, it wouldn't affect the CC companies a bit. The only real limit is if the US Congress sets a national cap on interest rates. I'm thinking that the large contributions the CC industry made to Obama is a better explanation for his vote - and that is what corporatism is all about.

Here's a good article on this:

Credit card companies sidestep usury laws -

"Most major credit card issuers are based in states without usury laws and without interest rate caps on credit cards. Banks and credit card issuers based in these states can charge any interest rate they wish -- as long as the rate is listed in the cardholder agreement and the borrower agrees.

And thanks to a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision, these the-sky's-the-limit rate policies dominate the credit card business."

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20020320a.asp

It's really an important issue, & IMO credit cards are THE major tool that's been used to transfer wealth from the middle class to the top 1%. But no one will talk about that because both parties are dependent on the money that they get from the CC industry. Cut up the cards! :) It's the most revolutionary thing you can do to stop corporatism.

[Marie26]

72. And here's the amendment:

I read it just to make sure that there wasn't sneakiness in how it was worded.

"SEC. __. TERMS OF CONSUMER CREDIT.

(a) Cap on Interest Chargeable.--A creditor who extends credit to any consumer shall not impose a rate of interest in excess of an annual rate of 30 percent with respect to the credit extended.

(b) Preemption of State Law.--The provisions governing rates of interest under subsection (a) shall preempt all State usury laws.

(c) Exemption to Preemption.--If a State imposes a limit on the rate of interest chargeable to an extension of credit that is less than the limit imposed under subsection (a), that State law shall not be preempted and shall remain in full force and effect in that State.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109:1:./temp/~r109XVSv5v:e166855:


In other words, the amendment would pre-empt state laws, UNLESS the state law was under the 30% cap. If the state had a lower limit on interest rates, that state law would remain in force. So this amendment would've forced states like Delaware to comply w/a 30% cap on interest rates, while states w/lower caps could retain those laws. This was a GOOD amendment for consumers, & it's sort of disgusting to me that so many Dems voted against it.


Sen Dayton's speech to the Senate:

"We can talk about people who lost their jobs and often, therefore, their health coverage, which means they have added economic misfortune on to a health crisis. They are the targets of this legislation, the victims of this legislation. It is self-entitled the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. If this bill is a consumer protection act, believe me, the consumers of America are in very serious trouble. This is a Credit Card Company Protection Act."

"So my amendment actually adds a real consumer protection clause to the bill that otherwise does not deserve the name. It would limit the maximum annual interest that could be charged by anyone, any lender, to 30 percent. Now, that tells us how bad things are in this country, that a 30-percent interest charge would actually be a reduction. Right now inflation has been running less than 2 percent annually. The GPO's current rate for a 3-month Treasury bill is 2.75 percent. The prime lending rate is 5 1/2 percent... Thirty percent as a ceiling of what could be charged annually is still consumer abuse, but it is a lot better than 384 percent or 1,095 percent or 1,095 percent. So that is what this amendment would do. It would set a limit of the annual interest rate that could be charged by any lender to 30 percent. ...

We have too many people in this country who are taking advantage of others and charging these astronomical, shameful, disgraceful, and they ought to be illegal, rates of interest and taking advantage of those people, driving them deeper into debt, many of those that my colleagues have cited as being the culprits in this situation, the nonhealth care borrowers who are running up these credit card debts.

If someone is paying 384-percent interest a year, they are going to run up that debt very fast. If someone is paying 1,095-percent interest on anything they have borrowed, believe me, anybody in this country is going to be needing to file for bankruptcy very fast. This bill does not even mention those abuses.

This amendment would put a real consumer protection clause into this bill and for that reason, as well as basic justice, we should do what this body is supposed to do, which is to stand up and protect Americans. I urge my colleagues to give it their support."

[Cameron27]

81. Ah

Marie shows up armed with the facts again :-)

[BenDavid]

37. This is where obama was incoherent and where edwards made

him (obama) look and sound foolish. The shine is slowly but surely wearing off.

obama making a speech-great
obama explaining his positions- falderal

[ProSense]

43. Here:

BS, Senator Clinton (Edwards' statement on the bill included).

[durrrty libby]

46. Indeed gibberish is one with the O

[geek tragedy]

38. Because there had been no hearings, no examination of the issue,

and because the Senate leader of the effort to defeat the larger bill advised against voting for it.

[jackson_dem]

45. You are suggesting context, legislative history, and the like matter when examining a vote?

[geek tragedy]

53. Shockingly, yes. n/t

[jackson_dem]

55. Too bad Obamites couldn't bring themselves to do that regarding Hillary and Edwards flyspecked vote

[Occam Bandage]

57. Sure we did. We argued context endlessly.

[CyberPieHole]

51. This is why it is better to get an ARM with NO CAP than one with one...

I would much rather have my loan reset with no maximum amount than getting a loan with a maximum amount. I don't want a high interest rate so if I get one with no maximum I will have made fools of the banks.(Obama's theory put into practice):silly:

[suston96]

66. I thought this was about credit card rates. Did it include mortgages and equity lines?

[Cleita]

64. It is too high. The cap used to be 18%

Anything beyond that was at one time considered legal usuary.

[Marie26]

65. Not true.

At one time, it was usury. But we're in a brave new world where banks/CC's can charge any interest rate they want.

[Cleita]

68. Why is it not true?

I remember back when no financial institution could charge more than 18% and those institutions were mostly pawn shops and other companies that would take high risk loans. Banks charged in the neighborhood of 8% back then. I remember my very first Bankamericard was 6% and it was so hard to get that my boss' a VP for the Bank of America. had to consign it for me.

[Marie26]

69. It was true.

It's not anymore. You weren't lying or spinning, & it used to be that way decades ago, but it's not that way anymore. Right now banks/CC can essentially charge 50%+ interest rates, so that couldn't be the reason that Obama opposed the bill.

[Cleita]

70. I know that it's true today. One of my credit cards is starting

to charge 35%. This is the reason I don't carry balances on them if I don't have to anymore. My family had a much poorer Christmas from me last year because of it.

[Marie26]

75. I think it's immoral

for credit cards to charge the amount that they do. It should be illegal. I'm sorry that you couldn't get your family the Christmas gifts you would have liked, but it's definitely a good thing to avoid carrying a balance on these cards. It's hard to imagine 6% CC interest rates now; disreputable pawn shops used to charge 18%, but now "reputable" lenders can charge over 500% interest for a payday loan. It's really amazing how much has changed.

[Cleita]

76. And it had a name usuary. It was illegal at one time.n/t

[zulchzulu]

71. Do you support a freakin' 30% cap on credit card interest?

A cap on Interest Chargeable with an annual rate of 30% that preempts State usury laws, which set limits on the rate of interest chargeable to an extension of credit, is a greedy-assed GREAT IDEA if you are in the pocket of the banking lobby, no pun intended.

Most credit card interest rates are about 20% plus or minus. Do you think Obama should have gone for a 30% cap? If anyone has a credit card interest rate higher than 10%, they should walk over and get some scissors and cut that POS up.

:rofl:

[Marie26]

73. No

The amendment only prempts state laws if the state interest rate cap is OVER 30%; if the state's cap is lower than 30%, the state law remains in force.

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

[guerrillafiter]

77. If this is true, it's troubling

30% is too much. I once had an Aspire Visa at 29.99% and was draining all my assets.