Kate Sheppard reports on an unusual coalition that has emerged to fight payday lending in Virginia:
In the last three years the Interfaith Center has linked up with anti-poverty and consumer rights activists, and groups like the AARP, AFL-CIO, and NAACP, under the banner of the Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending. The partnership also includes staunchly conservative, "pro-family" organizations like the Family Foundation, a group traditionally focused on fighting gay marriage and abortion.
"The more we looked at it, the more we saw the negative effects of payday lenders on families, and really on churches as well, because a lot of these families that were caught in the debt trap were having to go to churches for help," said Chris Freund, vice president of policy and communication for the Family Foundation.
Some of the partnership's strongest supporters the statehouse have been Republican legislators like Del. John O'Bannon, a social conservative who once served as the lead sponsor of legislation to recognize Feb. 6th as Ronald Reagan day.
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Also, from the latest print issue, Thomas Geoghegan wonders why we can't call payday lending what it is -- usury:
Before Congress goes after bank misdeeds on Wall Street, let's stop the petty theft on Main Street. I mean the predatory mortgages and usurious loans. Had we protected the poor and the weak, the problems of our mighty banks might not be so great. Why don't we have a "National Usury Act"? Why, in the party of William Jennings Bryan, is there no one demanding an interest cap on our Visa cards and our MasterCards?
But let's start with payday loans. In Chicago, payday lenders charge more than the Mob wants for juice loans. I have a client who pays 700 percent! And a lawyer friend at Legal Services told me, "I had a woman come in -- she gets $1,100 a month for Social Security and pays out $800 a month for her payday loans."
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--The Editors
