Recently, President Donald Trump cheered many self-styled consumer advocates by saying that credit card interest rates should be capped at 10%, and later gave his backing to a proposal aimed at curtailing the power of Visa and Mastercard.
Both proposals would in fact harm the very consumers they are intended to help, but their negative effects would go further.
States like Georgia that rely on the travel industry would be badly affected, and one of the Peach State’s signature employers would particularly suffer.
Capping card interest rates is a simple study in supply and demand. Many secured loans charge an interest rate higher than 10%; unsecured loans like credit cards charge higher rates out of necessity. By making it unprofitable to lend to higher risk consumers, such an interest rate cap would restrict supply of credit while leaving demand unaffected.
That demand would go to payday lenders and other forms of credit that will almost certainly charge even higher fees or collateral, like pawn shops do. Some of the demand would even be catered to by criminals.
Credit cards both democratized and legalized access to credit, with credit card usage increasing fourfold since just 2000, and it would be a severely retrograde step to throw away that achievement.
Read more in this week’s commentary.
– Kyle Wingfield
Friday’s Freshest 🗞️
Georgia lawmakers have raised transparency concerns over federal “guidance” communicated to the state Department of Education (GaDOE). While this issue might seem like the ultimate in esoteric “inside baseball,” it reflects a serious challenge to state and local governance in education, and has far-reaching consequences for Georgia’s students, parents and educators.
The Promise Scholarship is enjoying a successful first year with 7,744 participating students. Each one gets $6,500 for private school, homeschooling or another non-public educational option.
At the beginning of each year, thousands of taxpayers rush to support Georgia families by submitting a tax credit application for the Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit. Through the Tax Credit and participating scholarship organizations, Georgia is expanding K-12 educational access, increasing diversity in private school communities and saving Georgia taxpayers millions.
When it comes to the rising cost of housing in Georgia, there is a hidden driver in the lack of affordability that has nothing to do with workforce or building materials: the cost of time. While Georgia continues growing rapidly – adding over a million residents each decade dating back to 1980 – bureaucratic review has become a costly bottleneck for building homes.
Georgia continues to grapple with a complex, outdated and steadily expanding regulatory environment. Debates over the state’s regulatory burden, including proposals such as the “Red Tape Rollback Act” introduced last year, are not occurring in isolation.
Peach Picks 🍑
Gov. Kemp announced that Preciball USA plans to invest $17.6 million in a new production facility in Screven County, creating 65 new jobs over the next several years. Preciball USA designs and manufactures precision and industrial balls for industrial use.
Facing declining enrollment and thousands of empty classroom seats, the DeKalb County School District could close or repurpose more than two dozen elementary schools in the coming years. District staff, a committee of 150 community members and a consulting firm have been working for almost two years to figure out a road map for the future of the state’s third-largest school system.
Social Circle, an agricultural town in Georgia with one stoplight that stopped blinking yellow and red about 10 years ago, said resident John Miller. But the town of just under 5,000 residents could soon have a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention facility that could house twice as many people as residents.
The Atlanta area has a plethora of aging suburban office buildings that no company wants to lease. Many of these buildings sit empty and garner little interest from prospective tenants, but some developers are starting to take notice, conjuring up ideas that these vacant buildings may have a future — just not as office space.
Student athletes who sign sponsorship contracts in high school would not be stuck with those contract terms after graduation, under legislation approved unanimously Wednesday by the Georgia House of Representatives. House Bill 383 would nullify contracts to use a student’s name, image or likeness soon after the student either earns a diploma or leaves their high school for some other reason.
In the Media
Foundation President Kyle Wingfield joined 13WMAZ to discuss proposed budget adjustments to the Georgia Promise Scholarship. Kyle explained that the $86 million in unused funds are the result of lawmakers funding the program at full capacity during its first year, then planning to adjust based on participation.
Quote of the Week 🌟
One More Fact 💡
President Trump recently suggested that the election administration in multiple states should be nationalized and that “the state is an agent for the federal government in elections.”
This brings up a longstanding constitutional question: Who runs American elections?
The answer, by design, is the states.
The Framers of the Constitution deliberately rejected centralized control over elections. Having just fought a revolution against distant authority, they vested responsibility for administering elections in state legislatures.
Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” In other words, states run congressional elections, while Congress can change the rules if it passes a law.
For presidential elections, Article II, Section 1 gives states the power to decide how to choose presidential electors, and again, the Constitution gives no authority to the president to run or take over state elections.
This structure reflects federalism at work: power divided, accountability closer to the people and no single national figure controlling the machinery of democracy.
Calls to nationalize elections may stem from frustration or distrust, but concentrating power in Washington would not restore confidence. It would erode constitutional boundaries that have protected electoral legitimacy for more than two centuries. Reaffirming the states’ constitutional role in running elections is not partisan—it is foundational to self-government.