Qvisory - Tools for Life Blog - We Won! Next Up: The Senate

RSS

We Won! Next Up: The Senate

Suzanne Kahn

Posted Sep. 25, 2008
Tagged: Money, TakeAction, Credit Cards

We won! The House just passed the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights (HR 5244). This is a huge victory for young Americans. We carry more debt at this point in our lives than any generation to come before us and have the second highest rate of bankruptcy. The average indebted young adult spends a quarter of every dollar earned paying off debt.

Now it’s the Senate’s turn to take action. The Senate will vote on a bailout for Wall Street this week. Your Senator should make sure the bailout not only helps Wall Street bankers, but also everyday, young Americans. The bailout legislation should include credit card reform provisions like the House just passed.

The Senate bailout should ban credit card companies from:

Raising your interest rates when you are late paying an unrelated bill.
Forcing you to pay your least expensive debt first.
Setting arbitrary due dates and times.
Raising your interest rates any time for any reason or for no reason at all.

Every day, these sneaky and outrageous practices hurt consumers who don’t even know they exist. Tell the Senate to join the House and put a stop to them. Take Action!

Our generation has been in our own credit crisis for years. This week, we have a real opportunity to move meaningful credit card legislation through both houses of Congress.

Tell your Senator: Support young workers. Make sure credit card reform is included in the bailout.

I graduated from college last May and went straight to New Hampshire to work on the presidential primary for Americans for Healthcare, an issue advocacy group working to make health care reform the top issue for each presidential candidate.

In college, I worked with think tanks, grassroots advocacy groups, and on candidate campaigns at the local and national level. Again and again, I saw how powerful our generation can be when organized.

In New Hampshire, I realized that activism in our generation drops off after college. Most of the people who volunteer are our parents and grandparents. I am excited about Qvisory because I believe it's a chance for young adults to define and take action on a policy agenda that serves our needs.

I currently provide support to Qvisory on educational and policy topics. See Suzanne Kahn's other posts and profile.

Qvisory's educational content is supported in part by the Qvisory Education Fund.

Got an opinion? Speak out on news and issues. Submit a blog post or video to Qvisory.