Gettin' It Done - 23

23. Passed Credit Card Reforms: Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees.

It seems like such a good thing - transparency and a reinforcement of requirements to treat people fairly; to codify the plain truth that honesty is pretty important when we're doing business with each other.

Of course, this was passed in May of 2009, when certain politicians were still thinking they needed to get something done to fix some of the problems that nearly dragged us over the cliff in 2008, and to put aside their petty ambitions and empty pursuit of power for the sake of power.

So the Credit CARD Act* passed with a level of bi-partisan support that scared the shit outa the Repubs.  They had to figure that they were helping Obama create a legacy that would put him on Rushmore if they weren't careful.  So they decided to stall.  And I think it's really just that simple.  If they keep stimulus bottled up, then they keep consumer demand bottled up too.  And the longer you can hold it off, the bigger the jump will be when you finally uncork it.  The economy will not stay bad for ever.  If Obama is gone and their guy's in the Oval Office when things really start cookin' again, they'll stand in front of a giant banner every month when the jobs report comes out proclaiming that everything good that happens from now on is because of they helped America put the steel back in our spines blah blah blah.

*the warping, twisting and torturing of the language in order to come up with memorable  titles for these laws illustrates part of the problem - I guess I understand that we can expect the American public to shade towards being Issue-Stoopid, but if we took the time and effort necessary to create the mnemonics, and put it into...fuck it, never mind.  "Issue-Stoopid" kinda says it all.