Let's say you lose your job at a construction company because not as many Americans can afford to buy a house right now. Just because you don't have that job doesn't mean your son doesn't need braces or your daughter needs to go the doctor. So how do you pay for it? Many Americans reach for their credit cards.
Credit card debt has exploded exponentially over the years and is growing even more as people lose jobs and aren't able to turn to family or friends for financial help. In some cases, credit card companies have taken advantage of this recession, raising interest rates to make more money or tacking on hidden fees.
In past years, Congress has tried to do something about this. From 1995 to 2002, I worked for U.S. Sen. Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin who feels strongly about this issue. He proposed legislation that required what he called "nutrtional labels" for credit cards. Nothing complicated about it. Labels on boxes of cookies have more information that credit card companies are required to disclose. Durbin's legislation would have required companies to spell out just how much you'd be paying over how long if your balance was X or Y.
Well, the credit card companies won that round, but Durbin has kept at it, as he always does, and his former Senate colleague, now the POTUS, is betting that a public tired of greed and corruption are going call on their Members of Congress to do something about abusive credit card practices.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, President Barack Obama does just that. While the president says our economy shows sign of improvment, we still have a long way to go. And credit companies shouldn't be making a mint off of this recession. The House has passed such legislation; now it's the Senate's turn.
By PHILIP ELLIOTT – 3 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Send me a bill that stops credit card companies from taking advantage of consumers, and do it by month's end, President Barack Obama is demanding of Congress.
But there's no guarantee lawmakers will deliver by Memorial Day, and the banking industry is fighting back.
"Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties and hidden fees that have become all too common."
Legislation known as the Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate, possibly in the coming week.
"You shouldn't have to fear that any new credit card is going to come with strings attached, nor should you need a magnifying glass and a reference book to read a credit card application. And the abuses in our credit card industry have only multiplied in the midst of this recession, when Americans can least afford to bear an extra burden," the president said.
The House measure would prohibit double-cycle billing and retroactive rate increases, and prevent companies from giving credit cards to anyone under 18.
Obama wants to sign the legislation by Memorial Day. "There is no time for delay. We need a durable and successful flow of credit in our economy, but we can't tolerate profits that depend upon misleading working families. Those days are over," he said.
President Obama is headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, this coming Thursday for a town hall meeting to drum up support for the legislation. In the meantime, you can watch the address here.
In his weekly address, President Obama uses the dismal state of our economy as a jumping-off point for a call to streamline the federal government. In the coming weeks, he says, he will announce "the elimination of dozens of government programs shown to be wasteful or ineffective. In this effort, there will be no sacred cows, and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it’s time their government did the same."
He lays out a few sample adjustments he'd like to make:
Ending tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas
Stopping the fraud and abuse in our Medicare program
Reforming our health care system to cut costs for families and businesses
Strengthening whisteblower protections for government employees who step forward to report wasteful spending
All with the ultimate goal of returning to a pay-as-you-go budgeting system. Ambitious? Yes. But hey, this is a new era of responsibility. Watch the speech yourself, and read along with the transcript.
Back from his first foray as President on the world stage, Barack Obama used his weekly address to urge nations to come together to address issues such as the worldwide economic recession, pollution, terrorism, extremism and intolerance of race and religion.
Citing Passover and Easter -- two very different holidays that are celebrated in the same week -- Obama said every nation must join together to solve 21st century problems:
I speak to you today during a time that is holy and filled with meaning for believers around the world. Earlier this week, Jewish people gathered with family and friends to recite the stories of their ancestors’ struggle and ultimate liberation. Tomorrow, Christians of all denominations will come together to rejoice and remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
These are two very different holidays with their own very different traditions. But it seems fitting that we mark them both during the same week. For in a larger sense, they are both moments of reflection and renewal. They are both occasions to think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves and the obligations we have to one another, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we practice.
This idea – that we are all bound up, as Martin Luther King once said, in “a single garment of destiny”– is a lesson of all the world’s great religions. And never has it been more important for us to reaffirm that lesson than it is today – at a time when we face tests and trials unlike any we have seen in our time. An economic crisis that recognizes no borders. Violent extremism that’s claimed the lives of innocent men, women, and children from Manhattan to Mumbai. An unsustainable dependence on foreign oil and other sources of energy that pollute our air and water and threaten our planet. The proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons, the persistence of deadly disease, and the recurrence of age-old conflicts.
Obama has just returned from the G-20 (watch NDN's special preview of the April 2 London summit here) where most of the focus was on the economy. Yesterday the President made optimistic comments about the economy, but as NDN Globalization Initiative Chair Dr. Rob Shapiro has written and Simon has argued recently, there is much more that must be done.
The President heads next week to Mexico and then on to Trinidad and Tobago, the site of the Fifth Summit of the Americas (NDN hosted a March 26 forum on the Summit of the Americas).
Obama is not only America's President; he is the most powerful leader in the world. He will need help to face the daunting challenges ahead of us that he speaks about in his weekly address below:
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