Virginia Foxx is deeply concerned with your creditors' ability to make ends meet

I think it was in October or November of last year when my monthly Belk credit card statement informed me that my credit limit was being slashed to about $10 over my current balance. This is a problem mainly because your amount of available credit is one of the things that goes into determining your credit score - I guess banks figure that you could owe $20,000, but you only owe $2,000, so you're a good credit risk. Now suddenly I went from having a giant amount of available credit on this account to have none - and I hadn't done anything differently.

Belk said that it was my fault for not paying enough of the balance each month (I usually paid at least twice the minimum). I felt horribly ashamed for a few days until I started hearing that the same thing was happening to almost everyone I knew. In the wake of the worsening financial crisis, banks were flipping out and shutting down credit.

Of course, credit card companies didn't need a financial crisis to do things like jack up promised introductory rates because a payment was a week late, or change other account terms without any notice, or dole out credit cards to anyone with a pulse. But the fact that they seized up at precisely the worst possible moment for millions of Americans who needed a little extra help buying groceries or gas is just shady.

A bill passed in the House today would protect consumers from some of the credit card companies' more predatory and unfair practices.

The credit card bill, which overwhelmingly cleared the Senate on Tuesday, will establish new restrictions for credit card companies, including one that would require 45 days notice before a change in interest rates. It would also prohibit companies from raising interest rates on existing balances unless a card holder falls 60 days behind on minimum payments and makes it much harder to issue cards to students. Democrats said the rules were needed because the companies were engaging in abusive practices at a time when Americans were more reliant on their cards because of the recession.

And Virginia Foxx voted no.