Call your Senator today and tell them to vote for the Brownback Amendment Bill so that consumers have choices of where to get their financing when buying an automobile. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., is planning to offer an amendment to exempt auto dealers from the financial regulation bill when the Senate considers the proposed legislation as early as next week. The amendment preserves the ability of consumers to access credit at affordable rates. 94% of a automobiles are financed and there is a bill right now that is trying to take away the auto dealers right to provide financing. This will prove to give a handful of lenders even more power and control and customer less.
Auto dealers provide financing to millions of people each year that otherwise could not get financing. They also provide competition to customers through their programs that if removed would make banks and credit unions less competitive.
INDISPUTABLE POINTS:
1) Auto dealerships are not financial institutions. Dealers are not banks and are not direct lenders; they are simply facilitators of loans through lenders. Dealers provide optional retail finance services at their dealerships. They increase competition by providing consumers with a wide variety of options from multiple financing sources. This competition in dealer-assisted financing benefits the consumer because it increases access to credit while reducing the cost of credit.
2) Dealerships are small businesses. Dealers did not cause the economic meltdown in 2008; therefore, dealers shouldn't be subjected to the consequences of Wall Street's actions. Dealerships are small businesses with an average of 40 - 50 employees, hardly likening my business to the big financial institutions of Wall Street.
3) Car dealers are well regulated. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Reserve, State Attorneys General, and various other state entities currently monitor and regulate the financial transactions occurring in dealerships nationwide. The Brownback amendment would allow for these agencies and the full range of state consumer protection statutes to continue to regulate dealers.
4) According to data from the Federal Trade Commission in 2009, less than 2% of consumer complaints were auto related - only a portion of that 2% was related to auto finance.
Call your Senator today and tell them to pass the Brownback Amendment. Auto dealers did not cause the recent financial meltdown, it bank and major wall street firms that didn't properly regulate themselves. The independent auto dealer provide major sources of tax revenues to counties, cities and states to fund hospitals, police forces, firemen and city improvements not to mention provide major levels of employment.
This bill, if not passed will hurt consumers, increase interest rates on automobiles, and position banks to have even more control, less competitions and you the customer fewer choices. HAVEN'T THE BANKS BEING GIVEN ENOUGH ALREADY?
Call your senator tomorrow and tell them to support the Brownback amendment. For more information you can also contact 800-563-1556 or click here.http//www.nada.org/brownback