PayDay Loans: My Testimony before the House Finance Committee

Good evening Representatives, my name is Steve Ahlquist. I am the president of the Humanists of Rhode Island, a non-profit group with about 300 members dedicated to reason, compassion, optimism and action. I am here to support House Bill 5019 that seeks to put an end to the terrible injustice that is PayDay Loans.
I read a letter in theProvidence Journal from an employee of a PayDay Loan company in Pawtucket who told the story of a woman who desperately needed $200 to fix her son's car and help him keep his job. The writer stated that the woman was desperate, and had no recourse other than to utilize his company's services. The writer saw this as a vindication for the service his company provided, but I see it as exactly the opposite, because,

The woman in question had no choice.

The woman in the story had to either sign a contract and promise to pay the frankly usurious rates of interest the PayDay Loan company charged or face the potentially terminal economic consequences of her son losing his job. Given certain economic ruin or punishing interest rates of over 200%, the woman made the only choice she could. The question becomes: Would the woman have hesitated to sign the contract if the interest rates were set at 400%? 500%? More? How was she to avoid it?

The woman in question had no choice.

When people are faced with not feeding their children, accessing vital health care, paying the rent or fixing an automobile that's essential to getting or keeping a job, they will become desperate.

This desperation is like the smell of blood to PayDay Loan companies because PayDay Loan companies are vampires targeting the most vulnerable among us, sucking millions of needed dollars out of our poorest neighborhoods. When legislation looms that might threaten the company's ability to score obscene profits PayDay Loan Companies manage to invest $100,000 in a lobbyist, or, to keep with the vampire metaphor, a ghoul.

Certainly we can do better than this. Must we leave our most vulnerable as prey to the heartless, inhuman machinations of profit hungry monsters? Is their no other way to provide needed loan services to our poorest and most desperate fellow citizens? Are we so bereft of ideas or so blinded by ideological certainties as to cast our fate with monsters?

It is time for the General Assembly to drive a stake into the heart of the vampire that is devouring our communities by passing House Bill 5019.

Thank you.

Source: http://www.cautionchurchahead.com/2013/05/payday-loans-my-testimony-before-house.html

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