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Borrowing to Make Ends Meet

Learn More:
Credit Card Debt | Debt

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More by Tamara Draut

The New Frugality: No Passing Fad

New York Times Room for Debate | March 10, 2009

The Fix We're In: Tamara Draut on "The Deregulatory Impulse"

CW Unbound | October 21, 2008

Live Blogging (Sort of) Hearing on Students and Credit Card Debt

Daily Kos | June 28, 2008

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Up to Our Eyeballs
How Shady Lenders and Failed Economic Policies are Drowning Americans in Debt

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Strapped
Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead

May 22, 2009

President Signing Landmark Credit Card Reform Legislation

"After Years of Costly Gotcha Tactics Aimed at Vulnerable Families, Credit Cardholder Bill of Rights Act Will Begin to Restore F

Washington, DC--Today, the President will sign the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act, comprehensive reform of the credit card industry. Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Programs at Demos, a national research policy center that researches debt and industry practices and which advanced one of the first credit card industry reform proposals in 2004, issued the following statement:

"Today is a historic day for America. For far too long, the credit card industry has run roughshod over the household economy, taking advantage of the millions who rely on plastic to simply make ends meet and to pay for emergency expenses. The credit card issuers, over the last 20 years, have developed many tricks and traps to ensure that balances cannot be easily paid off, ensnaring families in a cycle of debt. The bill that the President signs today will end many of those tactics, and will begin to restore fairness to the credit lender-borrower relationship, at last."

Draut will be a guest of the White House at the signing ceremony today.

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