By narrowly defining problem loans, the NCLC claims, the Pentagon's final rules weaken a federal law enacted to protect military families from abusive financial practices.

Just days after the Pentagon released rules capping interest rates at 36% for loans made to service members, consumer groups are already whining for more. More restrictions, more caps, more rules that will further limit access to credit by members of the Armed Forces.

Lauren Saunders, managing attorney for the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), claims "lenders could easily tweak their loan terms to dodge new Pentagon rules." By narrowly defining problem loans, the NCLC claims, the Pentagon's final rules weaken a federal law enacted to protect military families from abusive financial practices.

The NCLC and other liberal groups lobbied hard for the new rules, primarily to restrict payday lending to military men and women. This despite the fact that only a tiny fraction of payday loans in the U.S. are taken out by members of the military.

The Military Lending Act passed by Congress last year caps annual interest rates at 36 percent for consumer loans to military families.

In lieu of giving banks a blanket exemption, the Pentagon specifically defined the categories of loans that are subject to the cap, such as payday loans. Among the exempted loans are credit cards and overdraft loans.

The always thesaurus-ready Center For Responsible Lending's Kathleen Keest, senior policy counsel, said in a statement issued today, "Predatory lenders are like rapidly mutating viruses. You can't just vaccinate against a very specific strain and expect the problem to go away." - nice.