Trump is doing his best to financially screw over the little guy
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/7/800049316/business-and-economy/trump-is-doing-his-best-to-financially-screw-over-the-little-guy/
Trump is doing his best to financially screw over the little guy
There is so much high-profile big-time badness all the time right now that sometimes things that are just a little bit more low-key terrible get lost in the shuffle. So you might have missed just how much this administration has been decimating consumer protection rules.
Okay, credit where credit is due. Sometimes the administration has help from the feckless Republicans in Congress and the Congressional Review Act. That allows Congress to overturn certain agency rules via joint resolution within 60 days of the agency finalizing and issuing the rule. If the president signs off on it, the rule goes away.
So we’d love to hear from both President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders about how Joe Sixpack’s life is much, much better thanks to killing a 2024 rule that capped the overdraft fees that large banks could charge to $5 absent special justification to charge a higher amount. Thank god we can all return to fees roughly seven times higher. Per GOP Sen. Tim Scott, capping overdraft fees would “have led to reduced access to credit and important financial services for hardworking Americans.”
How, exactly? Who can say!
In December 2024, the Biden administration had finalized a rule that would have brought giant nonbank digital payment and wallet companies under the supervision of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You 100% already use one or more of these: think Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Cash App, and so on. The seven largest handle about $13.5 billion in payments annually.
Republicans threw this out via the CRA as well, with Trump eagerly signing on. Whew. We’re so lucky that the bank-like apps we are all using to make billions in payments will continue to be unfettered by pesky bank-like regulations.
Were the people of America crying out for higher credit card late penalties? The administration sure thinks so! So much so that it switched sides in a lawsuit so it could join the industry plaintiffs who had sued over it. Now, Americans can stand tall and proud, knowing we are free to have late fees ranging from $30 to $41 instead of $8. God Bless America and God Bless President Trump, right?
The administration did the same little trick with a CFPB rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports, joining with industry to say that gosh, yes, the CFPB totally exceeded its authority by trying to regulate consumer financial protections. Salt of the earth types have been dying to make sure that suffering catastrophic medical debt also wrecks their credit! It’s as American as apple pie.
Were you dying to be contacted by debt collectors and sued for debts even though it is time-barred because the statute of limitations has passed? Trump has got your back, pal. No more pesky clarifications on that. Get hyped for that all-American, all-fun feeling of grinding financial fear. We’re all such lucky duckies.
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