Usury

Floor Speech

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am assuming today we are, in fact, going to vote on the credit card legislation, which is a very important step forward in beginning to address some of the outrages the large banks and credit card industry are perpetrating on the American people.

A few weeks ago, I asked folks on my mailing list to tell me what credit card companies are doing to them. Within 3 days, we had over 5,000 responses, and many of these responses were hair-raising. People have seen their interest rates on their credit cards double, triple. People are now paying 25 or 30 percent interest rates, which to my mind is unacceptable.

The issue we are dealing with on credit cards is something I have been involved in for many years. I was a member of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives in 2003. We introduced legislation entitled the ``Credit Bait and Switch Prevention Act,'' which deals with many of the same issues that, in fact, we are going to be dealing with today. So it has taken us a little bit of time to get to where we are, but I think it is a step forward.

What I do wish to say is, while the legislation we are passing today is important--and it is a very good piece of legislation; I congratulate Chairman Dodd for his work on it--it does not go far enough. One of the areas where it is not going anywhere near as far as it should be is finally addressing the issue of usury in the United States of America and making a moral determination whether it is acceptable, whether it is moral for banks to be charging Americans 25 or 30 percent interest rates and, in some cases, in terms of payday lending, significantly higher than that. Is that what we want to be doing as a nation? What I would like to do now is briefly read from what I thought was a very thoughtful article by Arianna Huffington in the Huffington Post, where she touches on the issue of usury, which is an issue we have to address.

This is what she says:

Throughout history, usury has been decried by writers, philosophers, and religious leaders.

Aristotle called usury the ``sordid love of gain,'' and a ``sordid trade.''

Thomas Aquinas said it was ``contrary to justice.''

In The Divine Comedy Dante assigned usurers to the seventh circle of hell.

Deuteronomy 23:19 says, ``thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.''

Ezekiel 18:10 compares a usurer to someone who ``is a thief, a murderer ..... defiles the wife of his neighbor, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not give back a pledge, raises his eyes to idols, does abominable things.''

The Koran is equally unequivocal: ``God condemns usury.'' And it goes on to say that ``those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence.''

In other words, throughout history, and in all the major religions, usury has been condemned.

What civilization has said is that it is simply wrong and immoral for those people who have money to take advantage of those people who need that money by charging them outrageously high interest rates. In my view, interest rates of 25, 30, 35, 50 percent are outrageous and it is usury, and it is time the Senate address those issues.

Up until the late 1970s-- and I am quoting Arianna Huffington again--

America's laws followed suit, keeping interest rates in check.

Then, in 1979, a Supreme Court ruling allowed banks to charge the top interest rate allowed by the State where a bank is incorporated as opposed to the borrower's home State. Hoping to lure banks' business, States like South Dakota and Delaware repealed their usury laws--and off we went.

That same year, Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which, among other things, allowed federally chartered savings banks and loan companies to charge any interest rates they chose--putting us on the path that led us to today, where banks routinely gouge their most vulnerable customers.

So here is where we are today. The bottom line is we are going to pass a bill that is long overdue. It is a good bill. I commend Chairman Dodd for his hard work. It is an important step forward in protecting consumers. But I am going to be back on this issue of usury. In the United States of America, we have to finally tell banks and credit card companies it is simply not acceptable to charge people 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates. We have to end that abominable practice, and I intend to be playing an active role in that.

I ask unanimous consent that the article to which I have been referring be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD

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