Class Warfare Against the Financially Responsible

Earlier, the Obama Administration pushed through $250 billion in mortgage bailouts, to bail out even some high-income borrowers with normal mortgage payments, and forced financial institutions it took over in the name of fiscal responsibility, like Freddie Mac, to run up billions in losses bailing out irresponsible borrowers.

Now, it’s applying the same destructive, redistributionist philosophy to credit cards.

Commercial lawyer John Hinderaker notes that with Obama’s support, “Congress has just enacted new credit card regulations intended to limit banks’ ability to collect money from distressed or incompetent customers. The New York Times explains the consequences:

‘It will be a different business,’ said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. ‘Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.’

The competent subsidizing the careless–that’s classic Democratic Party policy. Of course, the new rules will cause banks to lose interest in extending credit to the feckless:

The industry says that the proposals will force banks to issue fewer credit cards at greater cost to the current cardholders.

That’s the inevitable consequence, of course. But how long do you think it will be before Congressmen are demanding investigations into whether credit card companies are engaging in race discrimination because they won’t issue cards to all comers?”

(Liberal “journalist” and Obama booster Ezra Klein justifies Obama’s meddling with credit cards by falsely equating having bad credit with being underprivileged).

To make sure that trial lawyers are able to redistribute more wealth — a long time goal of Obama, who lamented that even the activist Warren Court didn’t engage in redistribution of wealth — the Administration has just promulgated new rules cutting back the reach of federal laws that shield commerce from state-court lawsuits.