AOC, Bernie unite to hit big banks

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders formed a dynamic socialist duo Thursday and rolled out legislation that would poke a finger in the eye of the banking industry by capping credit card interest rates at 15%.

The Loan Shark Prevention Act would impose the interest cap across-theboard and also allow post offices to offer certain basic financial services such as checking and savings accounts, according to an outline of the plan.

The outline offered blistering criticism of the banking industry’s “outrageously high” interest rates, which the pair of self-described democratic socialists said are harming working Americans.

Sanders (I-Vt.) and OcasioCortez (D-N.Y.) explained the 15% cap is modeled after limits set by the Federal Credit Union Act, which was repealed in the late 1970s following a Supreme Court decision mandating that banks can set whatever rates they want.

“This is not anything radical because we had these laws for a very long time, in red states and in blue states,” Ocasio-Cortez (photo right) said in an appearance with Sanders (photo left) in his office. “Fifteen percent, by the way, is a lot. You can run a bank, you can continue to be profitable but to charge 3040% interest rates is no less than extortion.”

The left-wing duo pointed to statistics from CreditCards.com that show the national average interest rate for credit cards is nearly 18% and many Americans pay much more. The total U.S. credit card debt hovers around $1 trillion.

Meanwhile, banks can borrow cash from the Federal Reserve at a relatively low interest rate of 2.5%, giving them plenty of profit margin.

But critics claimed capping the interest rate would shrink the market, hurting Americans who rely on small borrowers.