October 30, 2008
BACKGROUND
On October 14th we held a
teleconference with a national lobbying firm to discuss
the political environment under the anticipated changes
in Washington in January. This is to report
briefly on those discussions for those who did not
attend.
To explain, it is fully
expected that the Democrats will increase their power in
Congress and most likely Obama will be our new
President. We
reported on this previously and nothing much has
changed since the report. We do, however, have
more focus on the congressional situation.
Go here to see how the congressional situation is
shaping up. At the moment it looks
as if the Democrats may not have a bullet-proof majority
as you see.
We know the Democrats have
not been friendly to our industry nationally and we know
that our industry gets honorable mention in the Obama
political platform
as seen here. So, we fully expect there to be
some movement against us.
CONCLUSION
Here is what came from our
discussion with the national consultant:
-
Irregardless of who is
President, either new President would sign any
legislation against our industry. So, there is
no advantage or disadvantage for us either way from
that perspective.
-
An Obama
administration might, however, be more inclined to
issue executive orders that would not be favorable
to our industry and that could be a problem.
-
The issue from a
national perspective has been around for many years
and has been "managed" up until now -- with the
exception of the military bill. The national
consultant seemed to believe that this would
continue to be the case if the industry maintains
their focus. If the industry does not maintain
focus, clearly there will be an industry problem.
-
There is no
representation for title lending on a national
basis. If you are interested in title lending,
this is not good. There is a group putting
together a national effort and there may be other
options to explore in the not too distant future in
this regard.
So, the bottom line is
while our threat level is somewhat elevated it is not
"dire" at the moment. Clearly, the focus for the
next few months is at the national level. That
surely does not mean we can take our attention away from
our local efforts, but we must be aware of both for the
short term. Many of those who attended the meeting
were "cautiously optimistic" after the call. Let's
all hope they are right!
We will update our members
with more information on this soon.
www.CouncilForFairLending.com
