If You Like Your Debit Card and Free Checking Account, Here's an Important Vote to WatchThe Senate will have its first opportunity to undo – or at least delay – one of the most outrageous elements of the disastrous Dodd-Frank financial takeover legislation soon, perhaps as soon as this week.
In question is whether an amendment attached to the law by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will be allowed to stay in place, resulting in price controls on debit transactions. The Durbin amendment is already causing free checking to disappear and banks to add consumer fees for debit cards, and when it goes final it could devastate small banks and credit unions.
Democrats who believe in big government arbitrarily restructuring markets are expected to act this way, but the 17 Republicans who voted for the amendment were sold a bill of goods. They should now correct their error and support repealing or at least delaying the regulations.
The Durbin amendment was a giveaway to big box retailers who wanted to cut their debit card transaction costs not through negotiations in a free market, or choosing not to accept certain cards, but rather by turning to the federal government to shred their contracts with the payment networks and create a new price control regime. The losers will be the millions of consumers for whom debit cards have been working just fine, and the millions more who enjoy banking services like free checking that are made possible by through debit card transaction revenue. >>>
The current average fee, determined by the free market, is about 44 cents. The drastic price control will, as price controls always do, cause shortages and inefficient allocation of resources. In particular, it will spur the elimination of free checking accounts, free debit cards, and debit card rewards programs. >>>
Seventeen Republicans fell for it, and voted for the amendment. Fifteen of them are still in the Senate, and they have no excuse now >>> (They are: Chambliss and Isakson from Georgia, Grassley from Iowa, Crapo and Risch from Idaho, Lugar from Indiana, Vitter from Louisiana, Brown from Massachusetts, Collins and Snowe from Maine, Wicker from Mississippi, Burr from North Carolina, Graham from South Carolina, and Barrasso and Enzi from Wyoming.) >>>
The last thing our economy needs right now is more bank failures, prompted by a costly and unnecessary new federal regulation. >>>
Congress really should go further and outright repeal not just the Durbin amendment, but the entire disastrous Dodd-Frank law.
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Democrats are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to destroy this economy. And RINO's are right there, unrestricted by the GOP 'leadership', to help them in their quest by either signing on or 'rolling over and playing dead'.
If we dont vote out the current 'leadership' of the GOP we are sooo screwed.
