Trump Calls for Credit Card Cap, Forgetting His Own Rollbacks
The New York Times reports on former President Trump's newfound empathy for consumers swamped by credit card debt. This comes, rather ironically, after his administration systematically dismantled numerous financial protections. Recall, if you will, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under his watch, which saw efforts to roll back regulations on payday lenders and weaken oversight of
financial institutions – actions that, one might argue, directly empower the very industry he now seeks to rein in. It's almost as if a sudden populist pivot just before an election cycle is less about genuine concern and more about, well, populism. The pattern is clear: deregulate to benefit corporate interests, then 'discover' the public's pain when votes are needed. One wonders if, say, the
powerful banking lobby (who contributed over $13 million to Republican campaigns in 2020, according to OpenSecrets.org) might have preferred the silence on interest rates until now. The timing, as they say, is everything.