Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump floated a 10% temporary cap on credit card interest rates, a move that would allow "working Americans to catch up."
Trump introduced the plan at a campaign rally in Uniondale, New York, on Wednesday night. The average interest rate on credit cards was 21.5% earlier this year, according to the Federal Reserve, around the highest levels in a decade.
"While working Americans catch up, we're going to put a temporary cap on credit-card interest rates," Trump said at the rally. "We can't let them make 25 and 30 percent."
Trump's plan was met with cheers, though not from industry analysts. One said that such a move would compel banks to stop lending to borrowers in lower- and middle-class households.
"Wall Street banks would say, how much further risk do I want to bring on given the fact that my revenue is shrinking?" Nilson Report publisher David Robertson told The Wall Street Journal. "That's where the rubber meets the road."
Peter Schiff, chief economist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, told the New York Post, "That would destroy the industry and millions of Americans would lose their credit cards. There are heavy losses in credit cards from people who don't pay. So they need the high interest rates to offset that."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed a 15% cap on credit card interest in 2019 and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., proposed an 18% cap, both to no avail, the Journal reported.
The average credit interest rate hasn't fallen below 10% since 1994, according to the Fed.
"Government-imposed price controls on credit card interest rates would ... result in credit cards only being given to consumers who have high income and credit scores who post little risk to card issuers," a banking industry insider at the Consumer Banking Association told the Post.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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