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U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog
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July 25, 2008
Payday lenders spend $3.8 million in Virginia on lobbying
If you want an idea of just how profitable predatory payday lending is, take a look at these astonishing new lobbying expenditure numbers from Richmond, where the payday lenders dumped $3.8 million into legislative lobbying. The last I checked (and I've been there), Virginia remains a part-time legislature of citizen legislators -- paid a nominal $18,000/year -- who meet just a few months each year. Yet, here's the headline in the Richmond Times Dispatch:
Lobbyists' spending sets record: Payday-lending backers spent $3.8 million while total topped $20 million. If the predatory payday lenders can afford to spend that much money in just one state in one year, that should give you an idea of how much they are taking out of the wallets of hard-working Americans each year.
While their efforts prevented the legislature from enacting a tough interest rate cap sought by low-income advocates, the legislature did enact numerous new restrictions on their activities. No doubt the industry upped its efforts after getting thrown out of neighboring DC, as well as Ohio and New Hampshire recently. They're on the way out everywhere. Unfair practices like these can only be sustained for so long by lobbying. The public and the military (see my older blog Marine General calls payday lenders "parasites") have turned against them. A few more years and the rest of the legislators who haven't gotten the message yet will agree.
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at July 25, 2008 09:25 AM
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