Presidential Interpretation
October 7 | Posted by mrossol | Obama, The LeftSay what??? Exactly!
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Sometimes when a President adopts his own view of reality, especially this one, it’s hard to budge him off of it.
We editorialized here yesterday that Bank of America’s planned $5 monthly fee on debit cards—in response to Dodd-Frank’s revenue-reducing rules—is “perhaps the most transparent pricing change in the history of American finance.”
No matter. By our count, Mr. Obama in his hour-plus news conference elevated the specter of “hidden fees” at least four times.
After saying the Republicans want to “allow banks to charge hidden fees,” he said financial institutions “can’t be competing on the basis of hidden fees” and then said: “I mean, basically the argument they’ve made is, ‘Well you know what? This hidden fee was prohibited and so we’ll find another fee to make up for it.” Parsing that last, it’s not clear whether Mr. Obama thinks Dodd-Frank prohibits just “hidden fees” or any fee.
He ends this exploration by saying one purpose of his proposed consumer watchdog is “making sure transactions are transparent.” The Bank of America fee is transparent. Which raises the question a reporter asked: Whether Mr. Obama thinks he can dictate how much profit companies make.
“I absolutely do not think that,” Mr. Obama replied. Our reading of the President’s thoughts on fees, of any sort, suggests the contrary.
Review & Outlook: Presidential Interpretation – WSJ.com.
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