In an effort to restore the economy, President Obama and Congress have imposed new finance rules and regulations for companies and consumers to follow. While finance companies are required to clearly disclose to consumers all procedures of calculating interest, consumers are required to be financially responsible when requesting loans. Consumers, for instance are not allowed to lie about their income, and lenders are required to verify income claims. In addition, persons under 21 years of age are no longer eligible to receive credit cards without a co-signer or established employment history. While new changes to the financial sector may benefit the consumer and economy as a whole, the lack of established rules for banks will prevent economic progress.

Although banks have been mandated by the government to stop approving purchases that will place the customer in overdrawn status, they may still raise fees to increase revenues and cover other costs. If a bank finds itself in financial trouble because more customers are choosing to banks elsewhere, they may simply raise overdraftand service fees to cover losses instead of getting to the root of the problem. While government regulates the way that banks charge overdraft fees, they do not have jurisdiction over the amount that a bank may charge a customer in overdraft.

In addition to having the autonomy to charge any amount in overdraft and service fees, banks also have the security of the government in times of economic hardship. The recent bailouts that banks received showed them that the United States government supported them and would go down the financial drain with them. For many banks this meant that “I’m not going down without taking the fedral government with me”; and the likelihood of the U.S. government going bankrupt is slim to none.

If everyone else has to be subjected to adherence of rules and regulations, shouldn’t banks have to be subject?