WASHINGTON (WCAX) – An unlikely pair of U.S. Senators are joining forces to lower credit card interest rates.
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo. have introduced a bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10%. It’s a plan President Trump first announced on the campaign trail. If approved, the cap would be in effect for five years.
“I am proud to be introducing bipartisan legislation with Senator Hawley,” Sanders said in a statement. “When large financial institutions charge over 25 percent interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. They are engaged in extortion and loan sharking. We cannot continue to allow big banks to make huge profits ripping off the American people. This legislation will provide working families struggling to pay their bills with desperately needed financial relief.”
Hawley, known as a leader of the Jan. 6, 2021, push to block the certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory, is among the president’s most loyal supporters.
“Working Americans are drowning in record credit card debt while the biggest credit card issuers get richer and richer by hiking their interest rates to the moon. It’s not just wrong, it’s exploitative. And it needs to end,” Hawley said in a statement.