An Open Letter to Mark Warner
Some people were shocked that Virginia Senator Mark Warner was one of the two Democratic votes against the amendment for a middle class tax cut on the tax bill.
They shouldn’t have been.
Here is a letter left on the front door of the beauty salon.
An Open Letter to Senator @MarkWarner
Senator, I do apologize for the length of this letter, but as a relatively influential Internet personality who aspires to public service, I have a couple of questions that I’m hoping you can answer for me.
First, allow me to provide you and my readers some context.
Since the start of the session, you have been tirelessly working towards completing your pet project, S. 1642:
Considering that you’re a Democrat, one might quickly read that title and think that you’re working on a bill to protect consumers in the lending market.
But you and I know they would be so incredibly wrong.
You wrote this bill to create a method for payday lenders to evade state interest rate caps.
Its sole purpose is to neuter a decision by the 2nd Circuit in Madden v. Midland, which enforced state interest rate caps against non-banks (such as payday lenders).
It nullifies the primary tool against predatory lending practices by payday lenders. Splinter’s @libbycwatson summarized the situation well in a mildly profane but fair reaction piece:
You’ve publicly defended the bill by arguing that state interest rate caps have reduced access to credit by low income borrowers.
Your lobbyists point to a study showing a decrease in lending by three lenders following the Madden decision for those with FICO scores below 650.
But the study showed that these lenders offered only miniscule amounts of credit in that FICO range even before the Madden decision. Your lobbyists know the actual impact on access to credit was trivial.
I’ve seen the full text of the study, as I am sure your staff has.
And I’m sure someone on your staff is capable of explaining the “Before Madden” and “After Madden” charts on pages 43-54.
So we both know the score, Mark. Thank
Not to mention, all this academic stuff ignores the more fundamental question of whether the moral solution to credit access for risky borrowers is to deregulate the payday loan industry.
After all, if you wanted to increase credit to risky borrowers, why not get rid of federal wage garnishment restrictions and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?
Or at the very least extract meaningful consumer protections by leveraging the industry’s throbbing desire to scrap Madden? Just spit balling here…
There are a thousand ways to increase credit access that don’t require you to unleash a frightful clutch of vampires upon our nation’s most vulnerable residents.
You know this will hurt people. More than 150 state and national consumer organizations put it plainly: “This bill is a massive attack on state consumer protection laws.”
And oddly enough, you supported state interest caps on payday lenders back in 2008 when you were governor of Virginia:
Yet here we are.
Mark, you are one of the most powerful public servants in the country, a figure of genuine influence in a society where influence is a hoarded currency.
And speaking of hoarded currency, I understand that you have personally accumulated a quarter of a billion dollars. You are balling on Jay-Z levels.
By all accounts, you should be beholden to no one.
So I just can’t understand it.
I cannot understand, with the power at your disposal and the amount of easily erasable misery in the world, why you would ever spend a single moment thinking about the plight of the perverse payday loan industry.
The only possible answer is an abject degeneracy so extreme that it seems overly coarse to raise in an open letter to people…
So maybe you can explain something to me.
I am a fairly accomplished plaintiff’s lawyer in my 30s, and like you I grew up in Democratic politics. There’s a fair shot that I’m heading for elected office.
Almost certainly not something so lofty as the U.S. Senate, but an appellate bench or state office perhaps.
And I am sure that once in the corridors of power, some of my more naïve conceptions about civil service will evaporate.
For if I ever held an office so venerated as yours, I might, in my zeal to leave my mark on history, resolve difficult questions about my core values in ways I might find surprising today.
But I cannot imagine suddenly finding myself in the position where I had become a splotchy middle-aged used car salesman pitching for the payday loan industry into a pair of iPhones…
Because if I did, Mark — if I ever looked in the mirror and reached that epiphany — I would 100% slit my wrists in a bathtub while listening to Pink Floyd’s “Great Gig in the Sky” on repeat.
But that’s not your style Mark. You’re some kind of different creature. Something I can’t understand.
And I confess no small amount of anxiety about venturing into political life because of that.
“I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard.”
So I ask you, “What broke your spirit?” because I want to avoid it.
And “What corrupted your will?” because I want to destroy it.
It’s not money. It’s not power.
What is it, Mark?
It’s too late for you, but maybe with forewarning I can overcome this twisted fate.
Mark is one of my two Senators. I have been pretty much pleased with both of them. I also know just how sleazy the pay day loan sharks are. They have done everything in their power and then some to finagle around the law just so they can impoverish some poor soul who had no place else to turn. One of them was my son. We managed to pull him out of that trap. I absolutely don’t know what this guy is doing with this bill. He is not in need of any campaign money and he has a squeaky clean reputation so I don’t think he is being black mailed. I will go to his website and let him know that this bill will end up biting him in the ars if he goes through with it.
1I HATE PAYDAY LOAN PLACES. I’ve never been inside one but know enough about them to warn our children and grandchildren to STAY AWAY FROM THEM. Texas has no regulation for them. Are you saying if Mark’s bill passes, the regulations all over the country will disappear? They make neighborhoods look sleazy.If I heard that a friend was planning to borrow money in one, I’d try to help them figure out a better solution.
2What is it with Democrats paling around with payday loan companies? Debbie Wasserman Schultz and now Mark Warner??? All I can figure is that the Democrats are the new kids on the block when it comes to carrying water for Wall Street so they have to grab whatever is available and payday loans don’t have many takers.
I hope that Democrats like Mark Warner will realize that we don’t need two parties in bed with Wall Street. One party needs to be in bed with Main Street.
3I have always admired him, so I just wrote him an unfriend letter. I am thoroughly disgusted and ashamed and I told him so. No point in writing to the Texas scumbuckets. They are a thoroughly worthless lot. Not a single thing to admire in that group.
4Mother Jones’ cat says:
“What is it with Democrats paling around with payday loan companies? … so they have to grab whatever is available and payday loans don’t have many takers.”
Whoa Kitty, the payday and car title lampreys have been real cozy with many/most politicians going back decades, how do you think that they have expanded their slimy business to the huge one it now is.
I thought I saw a figure of about ~6,000+ ‘stores’ of them in TX alone. My little semi-rural 6K pop (now) burg has at least 5-6 of these places, plus 2-3 banks.
Decades ago there were R’s and D’s who facilitated their rise by gutting usury laws and such concerning consumer finance, and many others since.
TX Phil Gramm was a prominent one, along with almost every other TX Rethug ever; IIRC, even WJC helped them out a bit.
IIRC, TX voters just swallowed one or more state referendums expanding and relaxing restrictions on this crap and the related “Reverse Mortgage” stuff. There was the usual pre-election industry funded enticing advertising campaign, and our usual TX voters gulped it down.
I’m pretty damned sure that the various “mobs/mafias” have a lot of control in this ‘industry’ too, if not all of it. After all, they extract 80-800% interest from their victims, very profitable and low risk.
5I think Mark Warner will soon find himself too “conservative” for Virginia voters.
On the other hand, this is of a piece with those check-cashing places, which take a nice % of the check you are trying to turn into greenbacks. There are a lot of reasons people don’t have bank accounts. Proper ID being only one of them. It used to be that you could go to the bank the check was drawn on and cash without a whole lot of hoo-hah. Not any more, for some reason.
All this is just to pick the pockets of the poors. There are enough of them that it all adds up to real money.
A pox on all their houses.
6Remember Joe Biden was known as the senator from MasterCard, and Booker is hand in glove with wall street in privatizing public schools when he was mayor.
7So in Warner’s case he got bought by the Payday Lenders.
It isn’t just that they regularily betray their constituencie that bothers me about these erstaz D’s but just how cheaply and easily they sell out.
The credit market, like most markets, has become as competitive as ever as banks, credit cards and loan sharks all compete for better yields. And as the sharks customers are poached by other more credible lenders they scamper around to find new sources for profit. Giving money to democrats is part of this trend.
8Eons ago when I attended a class in Money and Banking at St. Mary’s U., I learned that the only requirement for cashing a check at the bank on which the check was written was a picture id, such as a drivers license.
My major was Economics with a minor in Government.
9The response from Senator Warner should be interesting. The last time we challenger Dean Heller (R-NV) his staff was busy collecting reports from every Senate committee meeting he ever attended or skipped and many he had probably accidently walked through in error. We received a box full of gratuitous junk mail.
Definitely stay on Warner over the payday loan issue. Carrot and stick him with a few of the things he does right to wrest him from the lobbyists on the issues where he goes astray.
Not new to our e-mail list is Speaker Pelosi. No problem with holding Rep Conyers to account, but she definitely needs to tag Lyin’ Ryan with responsibility for Pajama Boy. No bowing to the snaky double standards of the snacilbupeR.
10Mark Warner is a sell-out, too? Da. . .ng (sorry, Momma). Back when I lived in Virginia he was one of the good guys. Maybe he’s been there too long, and forgot that he’s supposed to be on the side of the people he represents, not on the side that’s willing to fleece them out of their paychecks.
11That Other Jean, you raise a good point that dovetails nicely with the OP’s concerns with Senator Warner. It also addresses what are reasonable expectations regarding our elected representatives. Some have called this phenomena the “Democratic Purity Test.” I would be concerned about any politician who agreed with me 100% of the time that at a minimum said person was stroking and otherwise fluffing me.
For example, President Obama was on the same page with me about 80% of the time. He won the tussle on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While the TPP as written at that time was full of negatives, the Bamz was correct that we needed to maintain a seat at the negotiation table. To lead, we need to participate.
That’s where Dotard45 and his maladministration are acting like little children crying “I’m taking my ball and bat…” He’s taken us out of TPP, the Paris Accords and is now dumping on the UN effort to address the many refugee crisis. Yeah, that’s showing “them,” as they carry on without us.
Whether it be Sen Warner and payday loans, Booker with his Big Pharma connections, and others with their faults, it comes down to a basic question – can we work with them, if they’re 80% or so decent.
That sort of answers the both sides meme. Most Democrats are 80%+ decent, while the Republicans have become more than 80% evil; evidence their tax bill.
In short, yes, give me a somewhat less than “perfect” Democrat over a near complete annihilationist Republican with Koch allegiance masquerading as patriotism.
12Just sent an email to Sen Warner letting him know my displeasure.
13Tilphousia, that’s a good thing. But back to my carrot and stick thing. Better to work with a flawed Democrat, if he or she responds to our concerns.
Hell, I work with a dufus Republicon in the form of Dean Heller (R-NV). Instead of him stroking and fluffing me, I reverse the tables and appeal to his flufferability. No joke, I once appealed to him to be a “statesman.” I try.
Just saying, if that type of gambit is worth a shot with Republicans, we need to get past perfect/pure Democrats and carrot/stick the hell out of them.
FWIW My least favorite Democrat was Max Baucus. I applauded President Obama’s decision to remove him from the Senate via a trip to suck smog in China. Wishing a little coal dust hell on Joe Manchin, too.
But, can I compare their crimes to those of Orrin Hatch, Mitch, Lyin’ Ryin’ and the snowball fool from Oklahoma?
14in my professional life, I audited both Pay Day Loan/Check Cashing companies. I took away from those experiences the following:
1. When these types of companies (along with pawn shops) open in your community, your community is in trouble. They only open in places that have reached a tipping point in low-income residents.
2. Once a person enters a transaction with one of these two types of companies, it’s nearly impossible for them to ever break the cycle, absent a minor economic miracle. This is because the onerous fees/interest rates make them captives to those companies.
3. Only the most desperate people tend to use the services provided by these kinds of companies. They also happen to be the most easily exploited by them, because they lack the banking resources available to those with greater incomes.
4. The only thing separating these companies from loan sharks, is state/federal regulations, on non-depository financial entities. Take that away, and their customers, the poorest/most vulnerable among us, have no protections at all.
Shame on Sen. Warner, one of my two Senators, who I have voted for since he first ran for Gov. of VA, for pushing legislation that would leave these people completely defenseless against the predations of these two industries.
15I also live in Virginia. When I get home, I will be sending Senator Warner (Mark, not John!) a strongly worded email.
16Shame on any elected representative who spends more time soliciting campaign contributions than attempting to serve the country.
Bottom line is you’re taking down this amazing country when you don’t have the starch to stand for something.
17Warner was also a Dem (along with Dick Durbin) who voted against an amendment to the so-called “Tax Cut” bill to protect Medicare and Social Security from being raided.
18Check it out on Democrats Abroad.
What’s wrong with these guys?