Vote YES on Issue 5

Issue 5 has to be the most infuriating piece of excrement on the November ballot. It’s a “vote-no-if –you-mean-yes” issue that will have voters so thoroughly confused that they will give up and vote ”no,” which is exactly what the promoters want. This issue would repeal the Payday Lending reforms passed by the Ohio Legislature.

I received a mailer showing the sweetest looking elderly man and woman, dressed in their Sunday church clothes, looking for all the world like your favorite aunt and uncle made vulnerable by an uncaring government. “Defend your financial privacy and financial options. Vote No on Issue 5,” it proclaims.

The mailer claims “A new state law will create a massive government database to track and limit the number of loans Ohio consumers can take out.” Yup, that’s HB 545, designed to halt the abuses of the Payday Lenders who charge 391 percent interest on short-term loans. A database included in the legislation -- the one the ad alleges will cause “Social Security numbers, retiree benefits, and personal medical records [to be] lost by careless employees or stolen by Internet hackers”—was included to make sure the lenders don’t send borrowers over to a companion lending agency to borrow money to repay the first lender in an endless debt circle.

Call it “Nanny Government” if you will, but why should we stand by and let financially vulnerable Ohioans get stuck in a Payday Loan trap? Our state legislature passed this legislation because payday lending abuses were all too obvious.

Curious thing: The website of Ohioans For Financial Freedom, the promoters of this effort, included the endorsement of a 79-year-old Seven Hills woman who, when I called her, said, “I don’t know why they would have me on that list. I never agreed to anything like that.”

I checked public records for other Cleveland area endorsers. One person identified herself as backing the issue, and the daughter of a Lorain County endorser said the woman works for Cashland, a payday lender. Records show another supposed Cleveland person living in Hinckley, OH. I left callback numbers for three on the list, but most had disconnected numbers or no data found.

Personally, I’d like to see maximums put on ALL interest rates charged in this state. Have you ever missed a credit card payment date and seen your interest rates soar? Some people have told me of rates up to 31 percent! Is that even legal?

And while we’re at it, a student told me her bank not only charges a flat overdraft fee, but it adds an $8 per day fee for additional days she hasn’t repaid the overdraft. She said the bank is taking her whole paycheck. So, now how will she buy food? You guessed it, panhandling and/or payday lenders!

If you want to keep the Payday Lending fees in check, vote YES on Issue 5.

UPDATE: Keeping Ohio's new law capping payday loans at 28 percent is an issue important enough to bring together Attorney general candidates Richard Cordray (Democrat) and Mike Crites (Republican) and former attorneys general Jim Petro and Betty Montgomery (both Republicans). Today (Wednesday) they urge Ohioans to vote "yes" on Issue 5.

http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/10/former_ags_candidates_say_vote.html