Financial reform pits car dealers against military

[unhappycamper]

Financial reform pits car dealers against military
By Janet Hook and Jim Puzzanghera, Tribune Washington Bureau
Stars and Stripes online edition, Friday, May 14, 2010

WASHINGTON — The debate over the Senate's financial reform bill is setting up an unusual battle on Capitol Hill between two powerful groups: automobile dealers and the military.

Car dealers, a well-organized small-business lobby with members in nearly every legislative district, have swarmed the Senate in recent weeks clamoring to be exempt from the legislation's proposed protections against loan scams.

They say the tough new government oversight should focus on the big Wall Street firms that caused the financial crisis, not auto dealers struggling to recover from it.

"There's a lot of dealers that are still on the brink, and taking their finance revenue away from them could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," said John Symes, who owns three auto dealerships in Pasadena, Calif.

But in a letter released Thursday, a top Pentagon official said soldiers need to be protected from "unprincipled auto lending" so they can concentrate on their primary mission: "protecting our great nation."