By Erica Irish
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS — When 38-year-old Steven Bramer Jr. returned home from a combat tour in the Iraq War in 2005, he carried the scars of an enemy attack and psychological trauma.

Since then, he’s struggled with addictions, first to narcotics and alcohol; then, more recently, to payday loans.

Bramer’s challenges began during his almost year-long service in Mosul, located on the north side of Iraq, when the Indiana National Guardsman came across an improvised explosive device (IED).

A metal wire that sprung out in the explosion slashed Bramer across the neck. Though he survived and made it home to receive a Purple Heart, the effects of the trauma launched him into a cycle of addiction.

After his homecoming, Bramer said he struggled with his reliance on alcohol and Vicodin, a pain-reliever prescribed to him by Veterans Affairs.

“In 2008, I quit my job. I had a house with a fiancée at the time…and I left and moved to East Chicago,” he said. “My parents didn’t know where I was for three months. I kind of just fell off the face of the earth.”

Bramer managed to regain his sobriety when he met his wife, 32-year-old Megan Bramer. He’s now been sober for eight years.

But it wasn’t until he and his wife encountered a years-long custody battle that he would realize the addictive power of a new substance: payday loans.

“Payday loans are like an addiction,” Steven Bramer said. “At first, you get the money to pay off a bill that you had real quick, but then you have to keep taking out the loans to stay afloat.”

Steven Bramer voiced this reality at a press conference Monday at the Indiana Statehouse. A coalition of veterans’ organizations, faith leaders and minority advocates hosted the event in opposition to new legislation that would expand the types of loans offered by payday lenders.

The legislation in question is Senate Bill 613, authored by Sen. Andy Zay, R-Huntington. It narrowly passed out of the Senate in a 26-23 vote last month.

In its original form, the bill stood at 14 pages and would have introduced several new types of payday loans.

But the day before lawmakers reviewed the bill in the Senate Commerce and Technology Committee, Zay presented an amended version, totaling 69 pages.

With the amendment, SB 613 would allow payday loan lenders to offer two controversial new loan options to borrowers, each with long-term agreements and high annual percentage rates (APRs).

The first option — unsecured installment loans — would allow Hoosiers to borrow loans between $605 and $1,500 for a period between six to 12 months with a maximum APR of 192 percent. A second option includes small-dollar loans, which can provide up to $4,000 across four years with a maximum APR of 99 percent. With small-dollar loans, borrowers can submit their car title as security for the loan.

SB 613 also changes the definition of criminal loansharking. Currently, in Indiana, lenders offering loans that carry more than 72 percent interest can be charged with a felony.

There are some exceptions to this rule, however. Under current law, lenders can tack on an interest rate up to 391 percent in 14-day small loans.

In the commerce committee, Zay said his bill was designed to highlight the realities of Indiana’s payday loan enterprises.

“This is a billion-dollar industry in the state of Indiana,” he said. “It needs a voice, it needs solutions and it needs some regulation.”

For families like the Framers, who found themselves owing tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees after a three-year custody battle for Megan Bramer’s oldest daughter, payday loans offered short-term relief to complicated situations.

The companies realize this, too. Steven Bramer said he didn’t seriously consider payday loans as an option until lenders started calling and emailing him every day, just as the family fell behind on their utility bills and car payments.

That’s forced the Hammond family to sacrifice. Their four daughters, for example, now have to forego activities like cheerleading and competitive dance. Soon to follow were delays in credit card payments and car maintenance.

Gen. James Bauerle of the Indiana Military Veterans Coalition said these practices commonly target veterans, noting efforts by Congress to protect veterans from payday loans, including the Military Lending Act of 2006 and the newly introduced Honoring Veterans in Extreme Need (HAVEN) Act.

Bauerle denounced SB 613 and said it only serves to harm Hoosier veterans and other populations in need.

“Today we strongly oppose SB 613 and its new range of grotesque, usurious loans that trap borrowers in a debt crisis,” Bauerle said. “The bill this year is far worse and more far-reaching than any legislation in the past three years.”

Bramer, Bauerle, and others at the news conference said the bill was unprecedented, and the product of out-of-state lending companies lobbying in Indiana.

In 2017 and 2018, for example, two leading payday loan companies — Check Into Cash and Advance America — contributed more than $60,000 to lawmakers, according to campaign finance records.

No matter the price tag offered to lawmakers, Bramer and the coalition said it’s the responsibility of the Indiana House to strike down SB 613 before it expands payday loan options.

“I protected you at one point,” Steven Bramer said. “Now it’s time for you to protect me.”

FOOTNOTE: Erica Irish is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.