Disapproving the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Relating to ``Overdraft Lending: Very Large Financial Institutions''

Floor Speech

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Mr. LICCARDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I am here to commemorate liberation month. A week ago, Liberation Day brought us President Trump's tariffs which will liberate a typical American family from 3,800 of their hard-earned dollars each year, according to one study.

The Trump slump, moreover, has liberated our retirement accounts from more than 6 trillion of those hard-earned dollars through market losses.

In week 2 of liberation month, the Republican majority proposes S.J. Res. 18 which will increase the annual cost of bank overdraft fees on American families by an average of $225, collectively liberating all of us of 5 billion more of our dollars in a given year.

Remember, the average debit card overdraft is less than $26. Mr. Speaker, it is repaid typically within 3 days on average. A typical overdraft fee of $35, which is what we had before the rule, amounts to an interest rate of more than 16,000 percent APR on the bank's loan of $26. Mr. Speaker, that is usurious. American families cannot afford any more liberation.

It is not as though we have a history here in which banks have always complied with the notion that these overdraft fees are simply to offer a service. We know that it has been used to pump up profits, in fact, illegally on several occasions.

Mr. Speaker, in 2017, TCF National Bank was cited by CFPB and ultimately settled. It paid $30 million for its abuse of overdraft fees.

In 2020, TD Bank was sanctioned $123 million for, among other violations, deceptive practices related to debit card overdraft.

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