Several members of Congress recently responded to an issue raised by retailers, including Atlanta's own Home Depot, nearly a year ago. They believe that a regulation that took effect Oct. 1 may go too far. The rule would keep stay-at-home spouses from becoming mired in debt, but only because they wouldn't be able to qualify for a credit card at all.

The 2009 Credit CARD Act put consumer protections into place that would, lawmakers hoped, keep card companies on the straight and narrow. No longer would unqualified consumers be given credit cards with vast limits, hidden fees and unreasonable surcharges. Credit terms would be stable and transparent, and cardholders would not find themselves inexplicably deluged with bills and collection notices.

There are two parts to making law, though. First, Congress and the president sign off on the legislation. Second, the new statute is handed over to one or more administrative agencies to figure out how to make the law work on a day-to-day basis. The same process works at the state level, of course.

There's an old saying about government in action -- something about how you never really want to see how laws or sausages are made. If Congress and state legislatures look tough, administrative agencies can be even tougher. Rulemaking can take years if a proposed rule garners enough objections.

In this case, though, it seems retailers objected loudly but had little support from other quadrants. The proposed rule, as we said, officially went into effect two months ago.

So what's the problem? We'll get into that in our next post.

Source: Collections & Credit Risk, "Credit card demonstration rule may harm stay home moms," Kevin Wack, Dec. 15, 2011