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Senate GOP is offended that Biden is being mean to banks and stopping them from cheating you [1]
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Date: 2022-10-31
All twelve of the Senate Banking Committee’s Republicans wrote to the CFPB to object to their constituents getting these protections from banks, and also wanted the CFPB and Biden to know that the banks are very upset that they’ve been deemed “junk fees.” Seriously.
“The CFPB has launched a relentless smear campaign against banks that offer optional overdraft services to their customers,” the letter read. “Charging fees that customers chose to pay should not be disturbing or illegal, and yet, the CFPB appears to have developed a particular disdain for banks charging their customers for services, pejoratively calling overdraft protection ‘junk fees.’”
Pity the poor banks, Republicans insist, just out there trying to make additional bucks off the precarious financial situation of their depositors, their customers. They kindly offer to allow those customers to pay them protection money—they even call it overdraft “protection”—so that they don’t have to get hurt when the bank makes up a whole new way to fine them. And President Biden and the organization created specifically to help their constituents are just being so mean.
Here’s one of the constituents of one of those letter-signing Republicans, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho. “I’m retired, living in a rural county in Idaho. I paid a $30 NSF fee on a check for $4 that the bank bounced anyway,” Kathryn Anderson, a retiree, said in her public comment to the CFPB. “Then the overdraft charges caused my checking account to become overdrawn, which in turn caused a new fee for every day my account was in the negative. The bank caused a negative loop which ended up costing me over $120 to fix.”
Many seniors living on a fixed income fall into this trap, which is why the AARP called for these protections. “For too long, banks and credit unions have profited by charging excessive overdraft and non-sufficient fund (NSF) fees that can trap older Americans in a debt cycle or force them to leave the financial mainstream,” the organization’s legislative policy director, David Certner wrote to the CFPB. The fees, he said, “are among the most expensive and common fees charged by banks.”
Banks are making tens of billions off of these kinds of fees; an estimated $460 billion since 2010. Which is fine with Republicans, because the banksters are doing a lot more to keep them living comfortably than the people who elect them.
It’s just one more reason for the people to vote them out.
On The Brief podcast, we speak with Way To Win’s co-founder and vice president, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona. Ancona comes in to discuss how grassroots progressive groups are spending money in the hopes of getting as many voters as possible out for the midterm elections. She also talks about which campaign advertisements are effective and which are not. One thing is for sure, though: We are living in historic times, and what that means for these midterms cannot be easily predicted—so Get Out The Vote!
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/31/2132561/-Senate-Republicans-fighting-for-the-rights-of-banks-to-keep-swindling-you
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