January 22, 2009
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News: Obama to the CC Rescue.
Alongside of Congress, President Obama is already rolling his sleeves up. Just a few months back, Congress leaned on the Treasury Department to fix abuse problems with the credit card industry. At that time, the Congress issued a stern warning that, if the Treasury Department's edicts weren't effective that Congress, themselves, would step in. These steps that Congress warned about are now being taken and, the support of President Obama is with them. This is in keeping with commitments he had made during his campaigns. Several regulations were handed down to the credit card industry months ago but, weren't scheduled to be fully implemented until July of 2010. Congress believes that, since that time, not enough progress has been made and so, now they are delivering a new set of their own credit card regulations.
Some of those provisions mimic those of the Treasury Department's earlier credit card regulations but, the main difference here is that these provisions would go into effect much sooner. Whereas, those earlier credit card regulations of the Treasury Department wouldn't go into effect until July 2010, these congressional regulations would become effective within 90 days of getting the President's signature.
These credit card regulations have been in the oven since back in September, when the House passed the first bill. Unfortunately, that bill got lost in the Senate Hearing Committee process. Then came the Senate version, which has been in the making since then. The newest version, called the Schumer/Udall Senate version was introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., in the House. The original senate version was introduced by Senators Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
It is being championed by Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn. Dodd is the head of the Senate Banking Committee. The tone of this bill is much stronger than the previous two. It is based on the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act. Called the Credit Card holders' Bill of Rights, this bill takes the stronger action of prohibiting all retroactive rate increases. It doesn't matter if the cardholders made late payments or not. One further step is to set limits on banking fees of all kinds.