AOC teams up with Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna for bill capping credit card interest at 10%

Two Millennial congresswomen have become unlikely allies on legislation to cap credit card interest rates at 10% — a policy that President Trump previously pitched on the 2024 campaign trail.Reps.Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), 35, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), 35, who usually find themselves on opposite sides of issues, unveiled legislation Friday to immediately stop credit card interest rates from jumping above 10%.“For too long, credit card companies have abused working class Americans with absurd interest rates, trapping them in an almost insurmountable amount of debt,” Lunda said in a statement.

“We need a fair solution – and that means getting rid of the status quo and putting a reasonable cap on interest rates.”Sens.Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced cap legislation last month.

Ocasio-Cortez has been involved with similar legislation in the past, including a 2019 bill to cap interest rates at 15%.“Credit cards with high interest rates regularly trap working people in endless cycles of debt,” she argued.“At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, we cannot allow big banks to shake down our communities for profit.”The current average is nearly three times higher than their proposed limit — at 28.71%, according to Forbes.Interest rates skyrocketed from around 15% during the red-hot inflation spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and stimulus and have remained elevated since.Credit card interest rates have never slipped to 10%, according to the Fed, whose dataset only goes back to 1994.

The closest it got was during the 2008 Great Recession, when interest rates slipped to about 11.88%.Critics argue that an artificial cap on credit card interest rates will lead to significant economic ramifications and prompt credit card companies to stop giving credit to millions of families.“Government intervention prescribing the terms of a highly popular unsecured credit product would likely restrict or eliminate a...