Banker French Hill clears path in Congress for bankers to charge you more

Country clubbing congressmen can't fathom the sting of compounding $30 overdraft fees — and anyway, they work for their wealthy buddies, not you and me. So it makes sense that Arkansas's 2nd District representative is doing his fellow bankers a solid by pushing to roll back a Biden-era cap that aimed to protect consumers.

Rep. French Hill of Little Rock, now chair of the House Financial Service Committee, is working to do away with a new limit on overdraft fees, those onerous tithes for the working poor whose checking accounts don't cover all their bills.

The message from Hill and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott of South Carolina is a power-grabby one. The federal Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has no business protecting consumers unless and until President Elon Musk and his fellow broligarchs say so.

Rolling Stone was the first to roll out this story with their Feb. 18 piece "Trump Administration Wants to Let Banks Jack Up Overdraft Fees: The administration's assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is turning into a direct attack on consumers."

The overdraft fee cap was instituted in December, in the Biden administration's twilight days. Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said at the time it would save bank customers $5 billion a year in fees and interest.

The corollary, that it would cost bankers that same amount, spurred Republicans into action as soon as they were back in the driver's seat.

Hill and other supporters of letting banks have their way with you colored the change as simple deregulation. Hill said he's doing this for you, to protect you! And, because he is pro-choice on banking.

"The CFPD's actions on overdraft is another form of government price controls that hurt consumers who deserve financial protections and greater choice," Hill said in the official press release from the House Committee on Financial Services.

(One might argue that a cap on overdraft fees is actually the financial protection we deserve, and so Hill's statement might make you feel a little crazy. Just me?)

Sen. Tim Scott's messaging on the "why" behind uncapping overdraft fees matches Republican arguments for limiting unemployment payments or setting up work requirements for Medicaid benefits: Shielding poor people from the negative consequences of their own actions will only reward their ignorance and failure.

Plus, if banks can't charge handsomely for extending overdraft lines of credit, they simply won't do it, Scott said. Protecting banks' rights to charge whatever they like is the compassionate thing to do, he said, because "… many consumers rely on overdraft services to make ends meet and limiting this practice will push Americans to riskier financial products."

As Rolling Stone writer Nikki McCann Ramirez noted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) offered some real talk about what the ultra-wealthy conservatives who rode in on a wave of populist scorn are really up to by attacking the power of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau:

" Donald Trump campaigned on lowering costs for working families 'on day one,'" she said. "He is now sidelining the agency that over the last dozen years, has returned $21 billion directly to people who got cheated by giant financial institutions. In other words, his plan is to do nothing on reducing costs, but sure enough, put in place a plan to raise costs for people who are working hardest in our economy."