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Army Secretary John McHugh weighed in with a letter last week to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., voicing his objection to Brownback's amendment. It's not the first time McHugh and Brownback have been on opposing sides. Last year, Brownback and fellow Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts both temporarily blocked McHugh from becoming Army secretary, objecting at the time to the prospect of terror suspect detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, being sent to their home state. Holly Petraeus, wife of U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus, also joined the fight. As director of the Council of Better Business Bureau's Military Line Program, she reiterated Stanley's assertions that many service members are in financial trouble with their auto payments, locked into loans with interest rates of 15 percent or higher. Consumer advocates have embraced the Pentagon's role, saying it has kept the vote margin closer. "Before the Pentagon's full effort, we got clobbered in the House," Mierzwinski said. Still, nervous about the dealers' strength, Reid has demanded that Brownback's amendment be subject to a 60-vote majority this week. Dealers maintain they already are well-regulated at the state level and that extra regulations will simply create additional costs that would be passed on to consumers. "For auto dealers, where financing is hardest to come by in rural towns in small America, this would, in fact, be a direct hit on their business," Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said. The exception they seek would not affect businesses such as Carmax, which sell cars and provide their own financing. Those dealerships still would fall under the new consumer regulations, as would giant lenders such as GMAC. Dodd has argued that even in assembling financing for customers, car dealers should not escape the same regulations as others who help write loans. "It is crucial that auto dealers, in the financing of autos, play by the same rules as their competitors do in communities all across our country," he said.
[Associated
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