Obama picks credit card reform over housing [View All]

[The Hope Mobile]

Obama picks credit card reform over housing
Posted: Tuesday, May 19 2009 at 08:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan

When President Barack Obama signs credit card reform legislation -- which should happen any day now -- that will be a great day for consumers. The legislation represents the first significant upgrade to American consumer rights in a long time. The bill has some real teeth -- it's much stronger than the original bill that's been floating around the House of Representatives for more than a year. Clearly, the president threw all his political power behind the effort to rein in abusive credit card practices, delivering speech after speech imploring changes and even calling issuers to the White House for a stern reality check.

Too bad the president is backing the wrong horse.

While $39 over-limit fees are hideously unfair and deserving of legislative attention, the number that really needs attention is 649,917 -- the number of U.S. homes that entered foreclosure last quarter.

Credit card debt is not the most serious problem facing America today. Empty houses are. Sneaky late fees and arbitrary interest rate hikes are terrible -- but foreclosures and homeowners who are severely under water carry exponentially higher consequences. For now, however, the Obama administration has decided to take the road more traveled. It has taken up the populist cause of credit card reform while abandoning dramatic mortgage market reform that Obama promised in October and again in February.

I cheer the credit card bill, and frequent readers of this column know I have been urging those changes for many years. I don't lightly surrender credit card issues as a top priority. But last week, Obama quietly watched as efforts to give struggling homeowners help in bankruptcy court died a legislative death. That was a mistake.

How did it happen? Ask Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrat who first introduced Obama to the United States at the 2004 Democratic convention.

“And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place," he told a Chicago radio station recently.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/05/obama-picks-credit-card-reform-over-housing.html

Is he going to pursue housing??