The Free Press
May 03, 2008 07:51 pm
—
Government naysayers are a dime a dozen, but two events last week show that government and the establishment in Washington D.C. can do things that serve the people they elected.
In an extraordinary move Friday, the Federal Reserve proposed new rules clamping down on credit card company practices that consumers have been frustrated with for years. Surprisingly, this comes from the Federal Reserve, an organization that seemed just a little too cozy with the financial industry when it provided assistance for the Bear Stearns deal.
If the rules are approved, credit card companies would not be able to charge excessive late fees for consumers who are one day late. They wouldn’t be able to automatically apply payments to the lower rate balances so they can continue to collect money on higher rate balances. They couldn’t arbitrarily and retroactively raise interest rates on existing balances.
The proposal by the Federal Reserve also would escape the hardball lobbying of the credit card companies because the rules don’t have to go through Congress. The Fed board approved the rules on Friday and they could be finalized by the end of the year.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the rules will create a more fair playing field and let consumers know more what their costs of credit will be.
Consumer groups who long pushed for Congress to do something about these practices seemed almost stunned by the breadth of the rules and the Fed’s decisiveness.
In another instance, Congress itself acted in good faith last week when it overwhelmingly approved a plan to make it easier for students to get guaranteed student loans for college. The law gives the Department of Education authority to buy student loans from banks and participate in providing guarantees to banks who make loans to students. The program would also draw $450 million into federal coffers through interest payments.
Experts say it was a necessary step to help maintain availability of student loans during a time of credit tightening due to the subprime mortgage crisis. Banks making student loans were not able to re-sell those loans because of the credit crisis created by the subprime mortgage situation. The law also raises by $2,000 the limit on the amount of student loans a student can get.
In this election year, there are plenty of darts for members of Congress and the establishment in Washington, D.C., as candidates crank up the rhetoric machines. It’s important to know once in a while that some good does get done as well.
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