"Change Is In The Air"-- Obama Signs Credit Card Reform Bill

Yesterday Obama put his best face forward when signing the credit card reform bill. The reforms are long overdue and it's good that the bill was passed and signed. The real reform would have been the Bernie Sanders anti-usury amendment that the banksters and their corrupt shills in Congress were able to derail. At the signing ceremony, Obama explained the thrust of what they did accomplish:

These are borrowers who discovered that credit card debt is all too easily a one-way street:  It's easy to get in, but almost impossible to get out.  It's also, by the way, a lot of small business owners who have helped to finance their dream through credit cards and suddenly, in this economic downturn, find themselves getting hammered. 

Part of this is the broader economy, but part of it is the practices of credit card companies.  Contracts are drafted not to inform, but to confuse.  Mysterious fees appear on statements.  Payment deadlines shift.  Terms change.  Interest rates rise.  And suddenly, a credit card becomes less of a lifeline and more of an anchor.

The Wall Street Journal pointed that the banksters are still pissed off that they're being regulated and prevented from ripping people off, but neglected to mention how relieved they are that the reforms were mild and left them plenty of rope and loopholes with which to hang themselves. The Journal did, however-- sneering-- that in order to get the bill passed Obama and the Democratic leadership accepted a horrid amendment from Oklahoma shithead Tom Coburn allowing people to carry concealed weapons in National Parks. As you can see on the video below, Obama didn't say one word about that. The White House fact sheet on the legislation concentrated on the reforms it brings to protect consumers from predatory banksters:

1. Bans Unfair Rate Increases: Financial institutions will no longer raise rates unfairly, and consumers will have confidence that the interest rates on their existing balances will not be hiked.


·         Bans Retroactive Rate Increases: Bans rate increases on existing balances due to “any time, any reason” or “universal default” and severely restricts retroactive rate increases due to late payment.
·         First Year Protection: Contract terms must be clearly spelled out and stable for the entirety of the first year.  Firms may continue to offer promotional rates with new accounts or during the life of an account, but these rates must be clearly disclosed and last at least 6 months. 

2. Bans Unfair Fee Traps:


·         Ends Late Fee Traps: Institutions will have to give card holders a reasonable time to pay the monthly bill – at least 21 calendar days from time of mailing.  The act also ends late fee traps such as weekend deadlines, due dates that change each month, and deadlines that fall in the middle of the day.
·         Enforces Fair Interest Calculation: Credit card companies will be required to apply excess payments to the highest interest balance first, as consumers expect them to do.  The act also ends the confusing and unfair practice by which issuers use the balance in a previous month to calculate interest charges on the current month, so called “double-cycle” billing.
·         Requires Opt-In to Over-Limit Fees: Consumers will find it easier to avoid over-limit fees because institutions will have to obtain a consumer’s permission to process transactions that would place the account over the limit.
·         Restrains Unfair Sub-Prime Fees: Fees on subprime, low-limit credit cards will be substantially restricted.
·         Limits Fees on Gift and Stored Value Cards: The act enhances disclosure on fees for gift and stored value cards and restricts inactivity fees unless the card has been inactive for at least 12 months.
 
3. Plain Sight /Plain Language Disclosures: Credit card contract terms will be disclosed in language that consumers can see and understand so they can avoid unnecessary costs and manage their finances.
• Plain Language in Plain Sight:  Creditors will give consumers clear disclosures of account terms before consumers open an account, and clear statements of the activity on consumers’ accounts afterwards.  For example, pre-opening disclosures will highlight fees consumers may be charged and periodic statements will conspicuously display fees they have paid in the current month and the year to date as well as the reasons for those fees.  These disclosures will help consumers make informed choices about using the right financial products and managing their own financial needs.  Model disclosures will be updated regularly based on reviews of the market, empirical research, and testing with consumers to ensure that disclosures remain clear, useful, and relevant.

·         Real Information about the Financial Consequences of Decisions: Issuers will be required to show the consequences to consumers of their credit decisions. 
o   Issuers will need to display on periodic statements how long it would take to pay off the existing balance – and the total interest cost – if the consumer paid only the minimum due.
o   Issuers will also have to display the payment amount and total interest cost to pay off the existing balance in 36 months.
 
4. Accountability: The act will help ensure accountability from both credit card issuers and regulators who are responsible for preventing unfair practices and enforcing protections.


·         Public posting of credit card contracts:  Today credit card contracts are usually available only in hard copy and not in plain language. Now issuers will be required to make contracts available on the Internet in a usable format.  Regulators and consumer advocates will be better able to monitor changes in credit card terms and evaluate whether current disclosures and protections are adequate.
·         Holds regulators accountable to enforce the law:  Regulators will be required to report annually to the Congress on their enforcement of credit card protections
·         Holds regulators accountable to keep protections current:
o   Regulators will be required to request public input on trends in the credit card market and potential consumer protection issues on a biennial basis to determine what new regulations or disclosures might be needed.
o   Regulators will be required either to update the applicable rules, or to publish findings if they deem further regulation unnecessary.
·         Increases penalties:  Card issuers that violate these new restrictions will face significantly higher penalties than under current law, which should make violations less likely in the first place.
 
5. Cleans Up Credit Card Practices For Young People at Universities.  The act contains new protections for college students and young adults, including a requirement that card issuers and universities disclose agreements with respect to the marketing or distribution of credit cards to students.

Dodd acknowledges that this was just a first step and that there needs to be an anti-usury law (a cap on interest rates) and a cap on the amount of money credit cards charge small businesses every time someone pays with a credit card.

Dodd said it was outrageous that a credit company could charge more than 30 percent interest on purchases. It was equally appalling, he said, that big credit card companies make so much money from small store owners and other entrepreneurs who have to fork over a portion of their profits when customers pay with credit cards.

"And we've got to do something about it," Dodd said.

The Senate rejected a proposal to cap interest rates at 15 percent amid intense lobbying by the banking industry and worries by some lawmakers that the cap would kill the broader credit card overhaul package.

Dodd has asked that the Federal Reserve conduct an analysis to determine how Congress could rein in interest rates.

A similar study on merchant "interchange fees" will be conducted by the Government Accountability Office. The fees, typically 2 to 3 percent of each transaction, are paid by the merchant so they can accept major credit cards and have those transactions processed through banks.

Coburn Adds Poison Pill To Law Meant To Protect Consumers From Credit Card Predators-- Will Reid Lose His License To Lead?

I know that dozens of senators-- all the Republicans and most of the reactionary Democrats from Evan Bayh's anti-Obama Bloc-- are trying to help out the credit card companies by killing the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, which is similar to a bill passed in the House April 30. That one was Carolyn Maloney's attempt to amend the Truth in Lending Act to "establish fair and transparent practices relating to the extension of credit under an open end consumer credit plan." It passed the House 357-70, with 105 Republicans revolting against their corrupt leadership to cross the aisle and vote with all the Democrats but one a mangy Blue Dog, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who is completely owned by South Dakota's powerful credit card industry.

Most Democrats got behind the Senate version of the bill, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, advertised as a way of preventing credit card companies from taking advantage of cash-strapped consumers with abusive and predatory lending practices. Specifically, what the bill is supposed to accomplish is this:

Protect consumers from arbitrary interest rate, fee and finance charge increases and prohibit universal default on existing balances
 
• Require fairness in application and timing of card payments, such as applying payments to the balance with the highest interest rate first
 
• Protect the rights of financially responsible credit card users by prohibiting interest charges on debt paid on time
 
• Provide enhanced disclosure of card terms and conditions and strengthen oversight of credit card industry practices
 
• Ensure adequate safeguards for young people targeted by credit card companies
 
• Require tougher penalties for companies that violate the Truth in Lending Act
 
• Protect recipients of gift cards by requiring all gift cards have at least a five-year life span, and eliminate the practice of declining values and hidden fees for cards not used within a reasonable period of time
 
• Encourage transparency in credit card pricing by requiring a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on the impact of interchange fees on consumers and merchants

So what happened today? One of the banking industry's most contemptible anti-consumer shills, Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has taken $900,422 in legalized bribes from the banksters in the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate sector, offered a poison pill amendment that would allow people to carry automatic weapons in National Parks. Among the Democratic lemmings who voted for this idiocy are all the anti-working families shills, like Bayh, Baucus, Specter, of course, Begich, Casey, both Nelsons, the two idiots from Arkansas and the two idiots from Colorado, Landrieu, Hagan... the whole sickening right-wing of the Senate Democratic caucus. But they were joined by a gaggle of real Democrats too scared of the gun lobby to stand up and act for the good of their own constituents-- Feingold, Reid, Klobuchar, Leahy, even Merkley! Only 28 Democrats (+ Lamar Alexander) voted against this idiotic ploy.

I was already getting wary yesterday when I noticed that Dodd, the author of the bill (and a recipient of more bankster money-- $13,238,806-- than anyone else in Congress other than McCain) was negotiating with the ranking Republican/bankster shill Dick Shelby to water down the bill and make it more acceptable to a tiny segment of society who should all be lined up against a wall and, after speedy trials, shot.

Dodd, in a statement, said that the agreement reached with Shelby probably marked the final compromise he would be willing to make on the legislation he has been pushing hard this year.

“While I expect some battles in the coming days from credit card companies and their allies in an effort to diminish these strict new rules,” Dodd said, “I stand ready to fight against any attempt to weaken the strong consumer protections in this bill.”

He didn't do a very good job of it today.

Which California Congressmen Are Owned By The Special Interests?

Dreier supports property rights-- for banksters & predatory lenders, but not for ordinary California families

Yesterday we looked at the dynamic between congressmen who have taken large quasi-legal bribes from the banking sector and their willingness to always support the banksters' special interests regardless of how gravely it impacts their own constituents. Yesterday's occasion was the overwhelming passage, by the House of the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 which  seeks to protect consumers from predatory and unscrupulous banksters and credit card lenders by:

·    Ending unfair, arbitrary interest rate increases;
·    Letting customers set hard credit limits, stops excessive "over the limit" fees;
·    Ending unfair penalties for cardholders who pay on time;
·    Requiring fair allocation of consumer payments;
·    Protecting cardholders from due date gimmicks;
·    Preventing companies from using misleading terms and damaging consumers' credit ratings;
·    Protecting vulnerable consumers from high-fee subprime credit cards;
·    Baring Issuing Credit Cards to Vulnerable Minors;
·    Requiring Better Data Collection from Credit Card Industry;
·    Swiftly Implementing the 45-Day Notice Requirement

Every Democrat but one mangy Blue Dog in bed with the credit card industry voted yes-- and so did 105 Republicans! There were only 69 Republicans voting no, a combination of the well-bribed and the sociopath extremists. Here in California, 6 members-- who always oppose regulations for their campaign donors-- voted no:

Ed Royce (CA-40- $2,506,414)
David Dreier (CA-26- $2,118,538)
Gary Miller (CA-42- $765,988)
Devin Nunes (CA-21- $499,235)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-22- $461,138)
Tom McClintock (CA-04- $353,294)

Yesterday David Dayen did an excellent preview of how the 2010 congressional cycle is shaping up in California. He points out that two on this list of sell-outs, Tom McClintock, who has emerged as the most extreme right member of the California delegation, and Dreier, who only wound up with 53% of the vote and whose district went for Obama in November.

Dreier will once again be forced to face a top rate challenge in 2010, Russ Warner, who has every intention of making sure voters from Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, and Claremont to San Dimas, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, San Marino and La Crescenta know that Dreier is strictly a representative of the special interests that have done such grievous damage to the state's economy and to the financial well-being to his own constituents. “Time and time again," Russ told us this morning after going over the vote yesterday, "David Dreier proves the interests of his corporate donors take precedent over the people he was elected to serve. Dreier’s never felt the pressure of supporting a family and has lived off the taxpayer dime for nearly three decades, so its not surprising he has no idea how harmful these predatory credit card companies are."

I'd like to hear that kind of talk from every candidate making a serious attempt to help us get rid of these congressional parasites. And each one of them should run an ad like this on cable TV:

Congress Exposed! Which Members Are Owned By The Banksters?

Early this morning we started the conversation about how pathetic it is that Harry Reid can't pass any legislation to protect consumers from predatory banksters. Obama was good on TV today denouncing the sleazy speculators who forced Chrysler into bankruptcy but someone has to get putative Democratic senators to remember that they work for their constituents, not their campaign donors. Before we get into the cramdown foreclosure catastrophe that went down in the Senate today, let's take a look at the votes in the House on Carolyn Maloney's Credit Card Bill of Rights. In the end, it passed 357-70, 105 Republicans joining every Democrat but South Dakota bribe-taking Blue Dog Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (who was also the only Democrat to vote "no" last year). On the Republican side, only the worst of the obstructionists and briber takers voted against the bill, 70 of them. The dozen ring-leaders who worked the hardest to sabotage the bill and would rather see Americans screwed by unscrupulous credit card companies than save their own constituents from predators are all owned lock, stock and barrel by the banksters:

Spencer Bachus (R-AL- $3,789,474)
Eric Cantor (R-VA- $3,121,188)
John Boehner (R-OH- $3,045,809)
Pete Sessions (R-TX- $2,730,126
David Dreier (R-CA- $2,118,538)
Jeb Hensarling (R-TX- $2,111,371)
Ron Paul (R-TX- $1,686,375)
Paul Ryan (R-WI- $1,555,321)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX- $1,253,775)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ- $1,156,599)
Tom Price (R-TX- $901,849)
Gresham Barrett (R-SC- $786,873)

Yes, the amounts in parenthesis are the legalized bribes each of these members has taken from the banksters directly (not counting lobbying). Earlier there was an attempt to kill the bill (a motion to recommit) by the Republicans and it failed 164-263, only 16 Republicans voting with the Democrats-- and 5 Chamber of Commerce Democrats voting with the GOP.

Tom Perriello (D-VA) explained why this was such an important vote for him and his constituents in central and southern Virginia: “The movement for accountability scored a victory today against the tricks, traps and usurious greed in the credit card industry. If they can't sell the product without using traps, that's a good time for consumer protection. This bill and my amendment put in place commonsense regulations that will protect all consumers, but especially college students who are disproportionately targeted.”

If-- and this is a BIG if-- the bill passes the Senate, it would ban retroactive interest rate hikes on existing balances (except when payments are more than 30 days late), ban double-cycle billing, and ban due-date gimmicks. Specifically, it protects cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases, and empowers them to set limits on their credit and requires card companies to fairly credit and allocate payments. It also prohibits charging fees just to pay a bill by phone, charging over-the-limit fees unless a consumer opts-in in advance or issuing credits cards to minors.

Good job, Nancy Pelosi and her team for getting this through with flying colors. Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter. As Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) explained yesterday, too many senators are so beholden to the banksters that they will never make a move against them-- not even if millions of their constituents are starving and homeless. The Democrats' poor excuse for a leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) moaned and groaned about the de facto "Republican filibuster," but it was a handful of his own reactionary and bribe-besotted members who killed the bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to intervene with intransigent banksters and keep families in their homes. It seems beyond belief to me that any Democrat would vote against this, except, of course, a fake Democrat like Arlen Specter, who so far is still voting with his right-wing colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But Specter was hardly the only Democrat on that side of the aisle for this vote (just the one who's taken the most bribes from the banksters: $5,753,310-- which failed 45-51.

Of course every single Republican voted against consumers and for their bankster buddies. The Democrats who joined them were a motley array of anti-family conservatives (in order of corruptness):

Max Baucus (MT- $4,633,243)
Tim Johnson (SD- $3,020,966)
Ben Nelson (NE- $2,667,406)
Mary Landrieu (LA- $2,399,134)
Tom Carper (DE- $2,160,628)
Blanche Lincoln (WalMart- $1,671,292)
Mark Pryor (AR- $1,321,948)
Byron Dorgan (ND- $1,102,184)
Jon Tester (MT- $473,226)
Robert Byrd (WV- $420,830)
Michael Bennet, the appointed one-term Colorado reactionary who belongs on the other side of the chamber.

Dick Durbin lectures his corrupt, shameless colleagues: "At some point, the senators in this chamber will decide the bankers shouldn't write the agenda for the United States Senate. At some point the people in this chamber will decide the people we represent are not the folks working in the big banks but the folks working to make a living and struggling to keep a decent home." Watch:

Could The Bible Have Saved Us From This Time Of Troubles? Sure... Or Hammurabi's Code

When activist/author Tom Geoghegan was running for Congress he came out to L.A. for a question and answer session with West Coast bloggers at BraveNewFilms. I was struck by the man's capacity to consistently refuse to fall into any boxes that trap even the most well intentioned political leaders. Tom is used to setting the agenda, not following someone else's. It's why so many of us supported his quixotic bid to capture a Machine-oriented Chicago seat held consecutively by three of the most disreputable characters in contemporary American politics: Dan Rostenkowski, Rod Blagojevic and, worse by far, Rahm Emanuel. And of all the outside-of-the-box formulations Tom laid on us that day, none made a greater impression than a discussion of usury.

When Obama was taking questions at his town hall meeting in Orange County last week, someone asked him about out-of-control interest rates. Obama isn't as hawkish on this as Geoghegan, but, clearly, he's thought about it. His comment pointed to a study by the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, Elizabeth Warren.

[S]he made a simple point… if you bought a toaster, and the toaster blew up in your face, there would be a law, a consumer safety law, that would protect you from buying that toaster. But if you get a credit card that blows up in your face, that starts off at zero-percent interest… and suddenly, it’s 29 percent; and if you’re late two days, suddenly you just paid another $30-- well, somehow that’s okay.

I think generally having some consumer safety, some consumer protection around credit cards, is important.

Geoghegan will tell you just how important in the new issue of Harper's Magazine-- How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed The Economy. It was for this kind of thinking I thought it was so important to elect a man of Geoghegan's intellect to Congress.

According to a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune last June, the number of collection cases before the circuit court of Cook County came to over 130,000. That’s double the number of cases in 2000, and well before the meltdown: obviously the number is even higher now.

...And then there are the home foreclosures, some 44,000 of them in 2008. The number of collection and foreclosure cases in this one county-- 174,000-- is equal to the total number of people in three entire Chicago wards: every man, woman, and child. I stress “child” in particular, since the banks give out credit cards like candy.

Yes, 174,000 cases-- and that was before the economy tanked. These are not old-fashioned collection cases either. Typically, the banks are enforcing arbitration awards handed down by “private arbitrators” who more or less work full time for the banks. So the banks can sue anyone anywhere in any court in America without having to provide a witness or prove a case.

The pain of all this may get much worse. If deflation comes (even in a mild form), it means each dollar of debt will be harder to repay. That’s why populists in the 1890s took up their pitchforks: deflation made it increasingly difficult to pay off the principal on their loans. But at least in the time of William Jennings Bryan, they were only paying back at 5 percent. While we deflate, credit-card holders will be paying off at rates of 20 percent to 35 percent, and 1890s-type deflation would make the rate feel more like 35
percent to 50 percent.

What’s the worst of all the legal changes that fill up collection courts? There are so many, but I’d pick the legalization of usury. It’s the form of deregulation that not only drove us into debt but also sped up the loss of the manufacturing jobs that created our middle class-- that, in short, brought about our current Time of Troubles.

...Some people still think our financial collapse was the result of a technical glitch-- a failure, say, to regulate derivatives or hedge funds. All we need is a better chairman of the SEC, like brass-knuckled Joe Kennedy, FDR’s first pick. It’s personnel-- it’s Senator Gramm’s fault. Or it’s Robert Rubin’s fault.

In fact, no amount of New Deal regulation or SEC-watching could have stopped what happened. Hedge funds in themselves did not cause Wall Street to collapse. Some New Deal–type regulation was actually introduced in recent years, but it failed to do much: think of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which made CEOs swear an oath that their financial statements were not fraudulent. No, the deregulation that led to our Time of Troubles was of a deeper, darker kind. The problem was not that we “deregulated the New Deal” but that we deregulated a much older, even ancient, set of laws.

First, we removed the possibility of creating real, binding contracts by allowing employers to bust the unions that had been entering into these agreements for millions of people. Second, we allowed those same employers to cancel existing contracts, virtually at will, by transferring liability from one corporate shell to another, or letting a subsidiary go into Chapter 11 and then moving to “cancel” the contract rights, inluding lifetime health benefits and pensions. As one company after another “reorganized” in Chapter 11 to shed contract rights, working people learned that it was not rational to count on those rights and guarantees, or even to think in these future-oriented ways. No wonder people in our country began to live for the moment and take out loans and start running up debts.

And then we dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter’s term, and which had been so taken for granted that no one ever even mentioned it to us in law school. That’s when we found out what happens when an advanced industrial economy tries to function with no cap at all on interest rates.

Here’s what happens: the financial sector bloats up. With no law capping interest, the evil is not only that banks prey on the poor (they have always done so) but that capital gushes out of manufacturing and into banking. When banks get 25 percent to 30 percent on credit cards, and 500 or more percent on payday loans, capital flees from honest pursuits, like auto manufacturing. Sure, GM is awful. Sure, it doesn’t innovate. But the people who could have saved GM and Ford went off to work at AIG, or Merrill Lynch, or even Goldman Sachs. All of this used to be so obvious as not to merit comment. What is history, really, but a turf war between manufacturing, labor, and the banks? In the United States, we shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it’s just the banks.

And Geoghegan's solution to all this? His plan? A state owned bank in every state; a cap on interest rates (9%); public guardians on the Boards of Directors that the government has bailed out; a bail out by banks of unconscionable, usurious consumer debt; and "injecting equity directly into the accounts of working people rather than into banks."

The best way to do this is to announce a plan to raise the gross replacement rate of Social Security from 44 percent to something closer to 65 percent, which is still short of the rate in many European social democracies. We can afford this as much as or more than they can.

Like I said, Tom thinks outside the box. It's exactly what we need in this country-- a lot more Tom Geoghegans and a lot fewer Tom Prices, Tom McClintocks, Tom Coles and Tom Coburns. Meanwhile, at least a more prosaic congressional mind, NY Representative Carolyn Maloney's, has come up with the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights which would, among other things, "ban unfair interest rate increases on existing balances and prohibit 'double cycle' billing-- a practice in which credit card issuers charge interest on debt that has already been paid during the previous billing cycle." Last time the bill came up (September 23rd, 2008) it passed overwhelmingly, 312-112, with 84 Republicans abandoning their corrupt leadership to cross the aisle and vote with all the Democrats except one, Blue Dog corporatist Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. It then died in the Senate. Unless Evan Bayh's anti-Obama bloc wants to commit mass suicide-- an attractive idea-- by crossing the aisle to the Republican side on this one, it will pass if it comes up in the current session.

Democrats Pass Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act-- While Every Single Republican Joins In Boehner's Efforts To Kill It With Parliamentarty Tricks

Republicans Want You To Grab For The Cheese

Even in the middle of what is turning out to be the worst financial crisis since anyone younger than John McCain was born, Republicans are still hell-bent on screwing over working families and serving their corporate masters. Yesterday the House overwhelmingly passed H R 5244, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2008, 312 to 112. Only one reactionary Democrat, a Blue Dog of course, Herseth Sandlin, voted with the Republican leadership. Meanwhile 84 Republicans fled in the other direction, joining the Democrats to pass a bill meant to protect consumers from predatory credit card companies.

If, by some miracle, McConnell and McCain can be overcome when they seek to use the filibuster to kill the bill in the Senate, and if, by another miracle, Bush signs it, the new legislation will protect consumers from unsuspecting interest rate hikes on credit cards. The opposition was led on behalf of the banks and credit card crooks by their pet hack, David Dreier (R-CA). Dreier has taken massive legalized bribes disguised as "contributions" -- $385,850 from commercial banks, $115,733 from Savings and Loans, $135,543 from assorted crooked lobbyists and another $156,299 from other financial corporations. The bill was proposed by House Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). The bill calls for major new regulations on credit card issuers that the banking lobby, with Dreier's help, has been beating back for years. Under the new law banks will have 45 days to notify consumers of any interest rate hikes and would ban "universal default," a practice in which a consumer's interest rate on one card increases if he or she misses a payment on another card or the credit score drops. It also ends "double-cycle billing," in which consumers are charged interest for the entire amount charged during the billing cycle unless the bill was paid in full.

Without shame, even in the current economic situation, Republicans are howling on behalf of their corporate paymasters. Far right extremist and one of the pillars of the GOP's Greed and Selfishness wing, John Campbell (R-CA) who is a member of the Financial Services Committee, insisted that the credit crisis means the bill is "the opposite of what we need right now."

The House Republican leadership, well aware that many of it's members are facing defeat in November for serving corporate interests instead of their constituents' interests, decided to attempt to kill the bill with a parliamentary maneuver, a motion to recommit, which is easier for sleazy Republicans (and Blue Dogs) to vote for than a bill that could easily make it into a 30 second TV ad and be devastating. Although the bill itself passed 312-112, with 84 Republicans joined the Democrats, the attempt to kill the bill was much closer, 219-198, with not a single Republican voting against the maneuver. Nine nominal Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- regular suspects like Nick Lampson (D-TX), Heath Shuler (D-NC), Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), and Trent Childers (D-MS)-- joined with their ideological brothers to try to kill the bill.

Among the dishonest Republicans who voted to kill the bill and then, choking in fear of their November meeting with voters, actually went against their own anti-families instincts and against their bribers' wishers to vote with the Democrats were

Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Charlie Dent (R-PA)
the notorious Diaz-Balart Brothers (R-FL)
Thelma Drake (D-VA)
Randy Forbes (R-VA)
Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
Virgil Goode (R-VA)
Sam Graves (R-MO)
Robin Hayes (R-NC)
Ric Keller (R-FL)
Joe Knollenberg (R-MI)
Michael McCaul (R-TX)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Chris Shays (R-CT)
Mike Turner (R-OH)
Fred Upton (R-MI)
Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Don Young (R-AK)

That list is basically the 22 Republicans most likely to lose in November and willing to sell out their own beliefs in fear. Below are another 13 Republicans in serious jeopardy of losing their seats but who are more afraid of their bankster campaign donors than of the voters.

Brian Bilbray (R-CA)
Steve Chabot (R-OH)
David Dreier (R-CA)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Jon Kline (R-MN)
Randy Kuhl (R-NY)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)

Watch Carolyn Maloney, the principal sponsor of the bill, explaining what it's all about on the floor of the House yesterday: