Anti-Payday Lobby Doesn’t Want Reform

Talk about not taking “yes” for an answer.

As many as thirty S.C. Senators and dozens of House members are on the record supporting sweeping reforms of the state’s payday lending laws, but a coalition of demagoguing politicians and so-called “champions of the downtrodden” have walked away from the table, choosing to let the legislation die rather than enact substantive consumer protections.

In fact, this anti-payday coalition has worked behind the scenes to kill a bill that would have dramatically scaled back the industry and prevented consumers from taking out multiple payday loans at the same time – just part of the effort to isolate “problem” borrowers from the thousands of people who use payday loans responsibly.

So what gives?

Aside from the fact that these demagogues and their left-leaning lobbyists are turning their backs on the very people they claim to be helping, what’s really at work here?

It’s simple – they don’t want to lose the spotlight on an issue that keeps their bellies fed.

And one that the, um, “media” remains obsessed with.

In other words, they’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose by a real reform bill passing.

By rejecting anything short of a total ban of the industry, the leading opponents of payday lending (i.e. Senators Vincent Sheheen, Joel Lourie and Wes Hayes) can continue to smile – or in this case “stare sternly” – into the cameras while pretending to be “champions of the downtrodden.”

Never mind that the “downtrodden” keep missing out on important protections while these poverty pimps keep posturing.

It’s a scam – not unlike the one being perpetrated by thirteen lawyer-legislators looking to score millons by suing the payday lending industry that voters are trusting them to responsibly regulate.

No conflict of interest there, right?

Sheheen, in particular, has the most to lose by a payday compromise – and the most gain by a protracted slug fest.

He’s running for governor in 2010, and removing one of his high-profile planks this early in the game just wouldn’t do.

Not surprisingly, Sheheen is one of the thirteen lawmakers suing the industry, and like the rest of these calculating politicians he knows that generating another year’s worth of anti-payday headlines (which liberal papers like La Socialista are perfectly willing to provide) not only helps his chances politically, but also helps him with juries down the road.

Hopefully that’s something his Democratic opponents in the 2010 primary will point out.

Senator Hayes, a “Republican” who has taken to voting with the Senate’s RINOcrat majority is neck deep in the scam, basically turning over the keys to his office to “poverty advocate” Sue Berkowitz and working side-by-side with her to intentionally torpedo the legislation.

Then there’s the left’s demagogue of choice in this debate – Sen. Joel Lourie – who actually had the audacity to tell La Socialista this week that both sides were “nibbling at a compromise.”

Right.

The left doesn’t want a compromise on payday lending – like some “West Wing” episode, they want the issue.

And while that may make sense politically and financially for them, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it makes absolutely no sense for the people they claim to be protecting.

Which when you think about it, pretty much makes it par for the leftist course.

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