{"id":106015,"date":"2026-11-14T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=106015"},"modified":"2026-11-13T17:41:04","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T22:41:04","slug":"some-ideas-are-so-bad-that-both-major-political-parties-support-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/some-ideas-are-so-bad-that-both-major-political-parties-support-them\/","title":{"rendered":"“Some ideas are so bad that both major political parties support them”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Americans think that more “bipartisanship” would be a good thing, yet every time there actually is<\/em> an issue that both Democrats and Republicans can support … it seems to be a uniquely terrible idea that sounds good but brings awful unintended consequences<\/a> tumbling along behind:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“Credit Cards” by Sean MacEntee<\/a> is licensed under CC BY 2.0 <\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Even in these divided times, some ideas are so bad that both major political parties support them. That’s certainly the case with proposals to let the government put a cap on the interest rates charged by credit card companies. It’s a scheme that seems considerate to those who run up debt but would instead deny riskier borrowers access to legitimate credit, and it could drive many people to lenders \u2014 some underground \u2014 who charge more. That is, it’s a plan stupid enough to draw backing from Democrats and Republicans alike.<\/p>\n

Bipartisan Economic Idiocy<\/strong><\/p>\n

“President Trump himself said that he wants to reduce interest rates on credit cards to 10 percent,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D\u2013Mass.) told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday. “I got the bill, I’m ready to go.”<\/p>\n

Sure enough, back in January, President Donald Trump<\/a> posted on Truth Social<\/em>, “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more … Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10%.”<\/p>\n

The two nominally hostile politicians discussed cooperation<\/a> on the issue earlier this year, though nothing concrete has come of it so far. It’s enough to make you wonder if the issue is enough to bridge political divides for these two as they flirt over their shared interest in idiotic economic populism.<\/p>\n

And the idea of capping credit card interest rates really is idiotic, unless you’re trying to deny options to higher-risk borrowers and drive them to more expensive alternatives like payday lenders and loan sharks. We don’t have to speculate on the impact of such caps; there’s plenty of evidence that trying to forcibly lower borrowing costs for consumers cuts them off from legitimate credit.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the Federal Reserve Board published a paper by Gregory Elliehausen, Simona M. Hannon, and Thomas W. Miller Jr.<\/a>, examining the impact of a 17 percent interest rate cap in Arkansas. They found that “consumer finance companies, traditionally a source of credit for nonprime consumers, do not have offices in Arkansas because, being subject to the usury ceiling, they cannot profitably lend to risky consumers.” Because of its impact on riskier borrowers, the cap was loosened for banks to “allow consumers to escape restrictive effects of the low Arkansas rate ceiling.” Even so, “results of our analysis suggest that nonprime consumers in Arkansas were rationed” in terms of access to credit.<\/p>\n

Notably, the paper described the 17 percent cap as “very restrictive.” The 10 percent cap currently contemplated by politicians of both major parties would be that much tighter and could be anticipated to further restrict access to credit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Americans think that more “bipartisanship” would be a good thing, yet every time there actually is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans can support … it seems to be a uniquely terrible idea that sounds good but brings awful unintended consequences tumbling along behind: Even in these divided times, some ideas are so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[831,25,84,53,13],"tags":[436,768,517,1365,1033],"class_list":["post-106015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economics","category-government","category-politics","category-usa","tag-banking","tag-democrat","tag-republican","tag-risk","tag-unintendedconsequences"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-rzV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106015"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106029,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106015\/revisions\/106029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}