Political Quotes

“Mr. President, after the financial crisis of 2008 we learned that predatory lending hurts more than just families who lost money. Predatory lending can affect entire communities and often targets the most vulnerable in our society--low-income families and seniors. Under Wall Street reform we addressed predatory mortgage practices and granted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the authority to supervise nonbank lenders, including payday lenders. We know who these payday folks are. I know them because their businesses are located a few blocks from where I live in Springfield, IL, on Macarthur Boulevard--title loans, payday loans. However, we failed to cap once and for all the annual interest rate that predatory payday lenders can charge for a loan. In 2012 payday loan volume reached an estimated $45 billion for storefront and online loans. This does not include deposit advance loans that banks make to consumers every day. If we look a bit deeper, we find that nearly 76 percent of payday loans are made to pay off a previous payday loan. It is a vicious cycle. Someone borrows some money, then they cannot pay it back with high interest rates, and they borrow more--deeper and deeper in debt. Fifty percent of payday borrowers ultimately default on their loans. With numbers like these, we can only assume payday lenders' profit depends on families rolling their payday loan over eight to nine times--racking up new fees every single time.…”