Debbie Wasserman Schultz shouldn’t be welcoming loan sharks into the Democratic Party
We know that the most vulnerable among us were hit the hardest during the 2008 financial crisis. Millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, and their bank accounts. That’s enough to make you sick to your stomach. But for many, it got worse.
Predatory payday lenders stepped in to profit during the financial crisis. They targeted poor communities — and people without access to credit from banks — by offering them short-term loans at sky high interest rates.
On an annual basis, these companies charge late fees and rates as high as 300 to 400% and many companies have even charged up 1,900% interest on loans, which is obscene. Worse, they target people — particularly people of color — who are unable to pay the loan back. If they fall behind, they are offered another payday loan to help cover the cost of the prior payday loan, with fees and percentages get higher and higher, trapping them in an process that never ends.
I have pushed for regulation of payday loan companies my entire career as a law professor and political activist. I worked with Senator Bernie Sanders and his staff on provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, and I was heartened when Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to do just that — to provide some basic minimum standards in payday loans to prevent the poorest and most vulnerable among us from getting ripped off and trapped in a downward cycle of debt. This is a reform that has been championed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and supported by President Obama.
https://medium.com/@Tim_Canova/debbie-wasserman-schultz-shouldn-t-be-welcoming-loan-sharks-into-the-democratic-party-3b802f9a1367#.cydnl213n
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