AUSTIN – Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released, Needed: Consumer Access to Capital by Bill Peacock and Olivia Krog. The paper details how regulation of payday lending, tax lien loans, and other lending products often reduces access to capital for those consumers who have the greatest need.
“In their zeal to 'protect consumers,' advocates of increased financial regulation reduce access to capital and thus harm the very people they seek to help,” said Peacock, the foundation’s vice president of research. “Federal, state, and local regulation of loans and credit cards have increased the cost lending to the point where lower income Americans faced with bills to pay and a shortage of cash are unable to get credit.”
The paper, which can be read in its entirety here, focuses on two lending products in Texas, payday lending and tax lien lending. Access to capital through payday lending is being severely restricted as Texas cities have improperly supplanted the state as the primary regulator of this market. With tax lien lending, property owners with mortgages on their property that need help paying their taxes are forced to go into default before they can get a tax lien loan because of provisions in law championed by special interests that profit from the defaults.
For more information or to request an interview with Mr. Peacock, please contact Alicia Pierce at [email protected] or 512-472-2700.
Bill Peacock is the vice president of research at Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin. The Texas Public Policy Foundation aims to advance a societal framework that effectively fosters human flourishing based upon cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and speech.
Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com
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