The Government should pay off all credit card debt

Grow the fuck up baby-bitch OP. You sound dumb.

For one thing they have stopped printing money like they did during Covid. I was surprised to learn that most credit cards issued don't carry a balance. People use them to pay bills for convenience and reward points, not because they don't have the cash. That's what I do, but for a good many years I paid minimum balance only.

What the government should do is continue to make payments to low earners and support an increased minimum wage. Studies show that a mere $200 dollars a month brings low wage workers out of poverty. This stimulates the economy, it's a win-win.

The Federal reserve, (which isn't the government) needs to hike interest rates even more to curb inflation. The government needs to regulate the virtual monopolies and corporate price-fixing which creates inflation.

[quote] most credit cards issued don't carry a balance.

Americans’ total credit card balance is $1.129 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the latest consumer debt data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s up from a record $1.079 trillion in the third quarter of 2023, leaving the balance the highest since the New York Fed began tracking in 1999.

I carry no balance on my cards but I could let it accumulate for a while. Where is my free money Joe ?

Take it to Reddit OP.

No, OP. But what they could do is regulate the fucking interest rates. They are ridiculous.

When I declated bankruptcy years ago (credit cards) I realized- through monthly fees- I had basically paid the amounts due on ten cards 3-times over during the previous 10 years. None of them bothered to protest.

Student debt is not the same as you accruing debt for paying hookers because no one else will fuck you, OP.

R3 Don't know why you quoted me. I said nothing about the AMOUNT of balances on cards, I said most cc holders don't CARRY a balance. That means they pay it off every month. That means they use their cards not as a loan but as a convenience.

The credit card industry is among the worst financial actors in the world. The entire business is reverse Robinhood: take from the poor and give to the rich. The interest rates are astronomical in general but those charged to the poorest are, of course, the highest (and it used to be tax deductible, but the Republicans took that one away because it benefited the poor disproportionately). They levy outrageous penalties for late or missed payments. Minimum payments are calculated to keep you in debt for as long as possible; it was only recently that they were required to print on the bills how long it would take the borrower to pay off the balance if they only made the minimum payments, which has been a real eye-opener for most cardholders. And the credit card companies share data with credit bureaus and each other much to the detriment of cardholders and merchants.

Which brings up the flip side of the industry: the people who accept credit cards. Most of them are in the same boat as cardholders; you must accept credit cards in today's business environment. So, first they hit up the merchant with a monthly fee to accept cards; then, they require "swipe fees" which is the per-transaction fee to merely accept the card as payment, which starts at $0.25 per, plus somewhere between 1% and 3% of the transaction total. Where it gets even trickier is that the cards are ranked according to the financial status of the cardholder, which means that when a poor person buys something, the merchant [italic]also[/italic] pays a higher transaction rate with the highest fees charged for those collateralized accounts (when you have to deposit the credit limit on the account in a savings account in order to get the card, as well as the gift card types which are also paid up front and bear no risk to the issuer); the second-highest rates are for cards that offer huge perks and benefits (more on that whole scheme in a moment).

And then there's fraud/risk/chargebacks, which is where they really soak the merchant, with a fee ranging from $25 to $50 when a consumer complains to their bank about a charge. The merchant must reply to any and every inquiry or the judgement is default for the bank (but not necessarily for the consumer). If the merchant loses the challenge, the entire amount in question is reversed, and of course they are charged a fee to process this transaction as well. If the merchant wins the challenge, they still pay the per-challenge fee, even if the amount in question is dwarfed by the chargeback fee. Chargebacks are a racket within a racket. The banks don't care about fraud; they don't pay for it, merchants do. Merchants pay for the cardholders' customer service. And it is nearly impossible to win a chargeback, and even when the merchant does, the cardholder can refile and start the entire process over, including another round of chargeback and processing fees.

But the pièce de résistance is rewards programs: literally stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Rewards programs are a multi $billion underground economy. Rewards are funded by the merchant fees, part of that 1% to 3% per transaction. Of course, the majority of transactions are small (under $100) and are by folks who carry balances month-to-month, so they're paying interest on the free flights, upgrades, merch and perks given to wealthy cardholders, who, by and large, pay off their balances every month. And yet poorer people don't spend in the volume required to amass enough points for anything meaningful, so go largely unused. Look at the math: cardholders get 1 point for every dollar they spend, and you redeem rewards for about 1 point per penny. The cardholder spends $10,000 to get a $100 gift card; think of how long you have to accrue enough points to cash them for a gift card or other reward if you don't spend significantly. Now, compare that to a wealthy person who puts everything from groceries to a new car on their card, pays the balance off each month, but accrues tens of thousands of points every month. And the entire scheme is tax free.

Student loan debt and mortgage interest should be managed separately from credit card and loan debt.

Ritualized thievery!

I love when Capitalists rationalize taking more money from government that the poor people it serves.

How about deleting all income tax from people making less than $75K a year and starting an annual capital tax, OP?

No, the Government should not pay off cred card debt, but we should go back and make Credit Card Interest Tax deductible.

Man up and fucking pay your own fucking credit card bills OP.

Pussy.