Wallet Watch

Obama made a speech on Jun 9th in Raliegh, NC on the economy, and dedicated a few words to discussing credit card debt. In it, he endorses the idea of a credit card safety rating system — also as seen on his campaign website.

Here’s the excerpt from the speech:

“Finally, we need to help those Americans who find themselves in a debt spiral climb out. Since so many who are struggling to keep up with their mortgages are now shifting their debt to credit cards, we have to make sure that credit cards don’t become the next stage in the housing crisis. To make sure that Americans know what they’re signing up for, I’ll institute a five-star rating system to inform consumers about the level of risk involved in every credit card. And we’ll establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights that will ban unilateral changes to credit card agreements; ban rate hikes on debt you already had; and ban interest charges on late fees. Americans need to pay what they owe, but you should pay what’s fair, not just what fattens profits for some credit card company and they can get away with.

The same principle should apply to our bankruptcy laws. When I first arrived in the Senate, I opposed the credit card industry’s bankruptcy bill that made it harder for working families to climb out of debt. John McCain supported that bill – and he even opposed exempting families who were only in bankruptcy because of medical expenses they couldn’t pay.

When I’m President, we’ll reform our bankruptcy laws so that we give Americans who find themselves in debt a second chance. We’ll make sure that if you can demonstrate that you went bankrupt because of medical expenses, you can relieve that debt and get back on your feet.”