Innovators needed to cut credit card rates by using data
In 2019, sponsors Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would have limited credit-card annual interest rates including finance charges to 15 percent.
In 2023, sponsor Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sought to limit rates to 18 percent. In 2024, candidate Donald Trump said he would limit rates to 10 percent, which Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders support as well.
If such a measure were to pass, many customers would be forced to retire their current credit cards, and they would not be offered new cards.
Beyond that, interest-rate price controls would only be a Band-Aid. The underlying predation would continue. Politicians let credit-card producers create money and exploit people’s desire to be satisfied now. This is the root of the problem.
Borrowing brings satisfaction only temporarily, and at a stiff price. As of 2023, producer revenues were 26 percent of balances, taken as 23 percent interest plus 3 percent fees to customers. Politicians and crony producers together tear away chunks of people’s liberty.
Producers paid 5 percent for........
© The Hill
