(C) Common Dreams
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Trump Promised a Cap on Credit Card Interest Rates. Here’s His Chance. [1]
['Rob Copeland', 'More About Rob Copeland']
Date: 2025-02-04
The new limit would expire in 2031, after Mr. Trump’s term. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the administration would back it.
“We cannot continue to allow big banks to rip off Americans by charging outrageously high credit card interest rates,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. Mr. Hawley, who has fashioned himself a populist on economist issues, described current interest rates as “exploitative.”
The proposal can be counted on producing a dim response from the banks and the credit card industry. Bank lobbyists came out hard against Mr. Trump’s remarks last year, arguing that they need to charge fees high enough to recover losses from borrowers who don’t pay back their loans.
The American Financial Services Association, a trade organization for credit card issuers, has said rate caps are “unworkable” and “actually harm the consumers policymakers are trying to help, by limiting the types of credit tens of millions of Americans depend on more than ever.”
Republican and libertarian policymakers and researchers have tended to agree.
As ever with Mr. Trump, however, traditional boundaries may not hold. The Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, was asked during his confirmation hearing last month if he would support a cap on credit card interest rates.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/business/credit-card-interest-cap.html
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