President Donald Trump wants to fulfill a campaign promise and put a maximum of 10 percent on the interest rates that credit card companies can charge consumers, but he's going to need help to get it done -- scholars say his heart is in the right place with an attempt to make good on a campaign promise, but he'll have to team up with Congress and the Supreme Court to make these kinds of changes really happen.

Presidential Executive Orders (EOs) aren't laws, they're directives for the Executive Branch of government and that's the limit of their legal effect, so President Trump couldn't count on an EO to get it done.

Lawmaking requires debate and ratification by Congress and then signing by the President, so when it comes to laws -- like requiring lower interest rates -- you can't have one without the other.

"There is no federal law on the books limiting a maximum credit card charge, and state usury laws don't greatly affect the actions of national banks, so they're currently free to charge what they like," according to Constitutional lawyer Andy Trusevich, however "what President Trump can do is say to credit card companies -- If you want to do business with us in the federal government you better lower your interest rates to 10%.

"But then it would be up to the credit card companies to decide whether to go along [and they might out of courtesy] but there would still be no law to force them to cooperate," he adds.

Legal expert Jeremy Rosenthal concurs.

"The way to think about it is, an Executive Order directs the federal government to act in a certain way, it doesn't have the power of a statute and it certainly doesn't have the power of a Constitutional provision.

"It a statute is in conflict with a presidential order, the statute will override it and if a Constitutional provision is in conflict with an Executive Order the Constitutional provision will override the Executive Order," Rosenthal says.

Of course banks are against the idea of lowering the maximum interest rate to 10% because it cuts deeply into their profits, but it's also been established in research studies that the cards would still be quite profitable; it's people with poor or fair credit who are most often charged high interest rates that can reach 30% and with a 10% rate cap, banks say they would be forced to stop offering credit cards to most of them.

"If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives" is the way the American Bankers Association put it, meaning those with lesser credit scores might be forced into the hands of payday loan storefronts and loan sharks.

Interestingly, both self-avowed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders and Republican Josh Hawley agree with President Trump's efforts and have formulated a plan to reduce interest rates to 10% for five years rather than President Trump's suggested two years, and another Democratic Socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has also suggested similar action.

It's also true that President Trump could take a page out of the Democrats' playbook and use an executive order to force banks to lower rates, something that the Supreme Court would likely rule unconstitutional.

Democrats have for many years implied to Americans that they have more power than they really possess -- the creation of an "Office of the President Elect" just after Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, issuing statements from an "official" office where no such office exists, as an example -- but it appears unlikely President Trump would do that.

The presidential power of Executive Order is one of the most misunderstood actions of the entire federal government.

Some recent presidents, such as Obama, Biden and Trump, issued EOs and loudly announced them as if they were new laws, but their reach has been limited.

"A president can change the way an existing law or constitutional provision is implemented, but he or she cannot make a new law," Constitutional scholar Andy Trusevich says.

There are a few EOs that stuck, however, largely by achieving popularity among Americans.

"The declaration of Thanksgiving to be in November by President George Washington; the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, that was an Executive Order," Trusevich adds, "and it was an Executive Order by President Franklin Roosevelt to relocate Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, so there are good ones and bad ones."

San Antonio's First News