While you were preoccupied with the oil spill, the Middle East crisis, the unemployment rate, and everything else in the news, the Senate has been trying to slip a fast one by you. This time, it has to do with your everyday purchases that you make on your debit cards. The changes may sound technical and innocuous when described by the author of the amendment to the financial industry regulation bill, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), but peel back the layers and here’s what have we’ve got:Add financial advice to the many topics about which Perino knows just about nothing; as noted here…
The amendment would make the Federal Reserve Bank dictate debit card “interchange rates.” What does that mean? Well, an interchange fee is money that a retailer's bank pays your bank when you use your credit or debit card at their store.
If the smaller financial institutions didn’t have this revenue source, they say it would be very difficult for them to provide basic financial services for their customers. Consumers would either be at the mercy of the large banks that Congress is supposedly trying to rein in, or they would have to rely on less secure forms of payment such as cash and checks.
Sen. Dick Durbin successfully passed an amendment two weeks ago that would limit the outrageously high interchange fees that Visa and MasterCard charge merchants for debit card transactions. This was a big win that reins in some pretty indefensible industry practices, but Visa and MasterCard are (unsurprisingly) fighting back. How? Well, they can hardly expect to gain much sympathy for either themselves or the Wall Street giants whose profits might get trimmed by Durbin's amendment, so instead they're mounting a coordinated campaign that claims it's small credit unions who will suffer the most.And on the subject of how Durbin’s amendment supposedly hurts “smaller financial institutions”…
This is despite the fact that Durbin's language specifically exempts banks with less than $10 billion in assets and specifically requires merchants to accept all cards in a particular network regardless of which bank issues them. If a small credit union charges a higher fee than Citibank, your local 7-11 would have to take their Visa debit cards anyway.And why go to the Fed to regulate debit card interchange rates? As HuffPo tells us here…
Durbin wants the Federal Reserve to ensure the fees that credit card companies charge for debit card use are proportional to the costs of processing the transaction.And even with the $10 billion exception, HuffPo tells us that Durbin’s legislation would affect 65 percent of all card transactions in the United States.
Durbin's measure requires that once merchants can pay lower fees for debit card purchases, they then would be able to offer discounts to their customers based on their method of payment. Merchants would be prohibited from placing minimum purchase requirements for the use of a debit card.
Would the “banksters” find other ways to replace the missing income? I’m sure they would. But isn’t it worth it to try and rein in credit card charges?
And by the way, check this out from Perino…
History shows us that price controls never work. Yet, the left keeps trying to impose them.
Um…I really don’t think you could include this guy as a member of “the left,” Dana, at least not without a fight (here).HouseAnd once more, for a reminder on why this matters…
"Don't ask, don't tell" repeal. Voting 234-194, the House passed an amendment to the fiscal 2011 defense budget (HR 5136) that would make it legal for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. The vote was to repeal the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" law under which about 13,500 troops have been discharged after their homosexuality became public. The repeal would occur after the Pentagon completes a policy review in December.
Rep. Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.) said: "When I served in Baghdad, my team did not care whether a fellow soldier was straight or gay. We cared if they could fire their F4 assault rifle or run a convoy down 'Ambush Alley.' Could they do their job so that everybody in our unit could come home safely? With our military fighting two wars, why on earth would we tell over 13,500 able-bodied Americans that their services are not needed?"
A yes vote backed the amendment.
Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).
Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).
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2011 military budget. Voting 229-186, the House authorized a $680 billion military budget for fiscal 2011, an increase of $46 billion or nearly 7 percent over the comparable 2010 figure. The bill (HR 5136) authorizes $159 billion for war next year in Iraq and Afghanistan.Funny, but I’m not hearing anything now from the Repugs about not “supporting the troops” if you don’t fund war without end, wouldn’t you say (sorry for the triple negative – guess I lose my copy of Strunk and White now for that one...kudos to Castle and Dent anyway - no, I don't support open-ended funding of the wars either, for the record).
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.
Voting no: Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.
Jobless, business benefits. Voting 215-204, the House passed a nearly $100 billion bill (HR 4213) that would extend jobless checks for the long-term unemployed through November and renew an array of tax breaks - such as the research-and-development credit - that benefit businesses.No to R&D, no to extending jobless benefits, no even to business tax credits – the Republican Party is intellectually dead, people. All they have to offer is “No” and tried and true non-solutions that have utterly failed.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.
Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.
I am a fair-minded individual, and that I believe every person should have a voice and a chance to be heard. As a parent and childcare provider, I do my best to instill the many aspects of this concept in our future generation. Unfortunately, it would appear that my 8-year-old understands this ideal much better than GOP congressional candidate Mike Fitzpatrick and his friends, who crashed a recent meeting conducted by Congressman Patrick Murphy.Indeed (and to reward good behavior, for this and DADT, click here).
When I saw the videos of the meeting on YouTube, I was very unhappy for many reasons. It seemed to me that the day was scheduled for one-on-one meetings between Murphy and his constituents, and while in the midst of these meetings (that the people signed in and waited patiently for) a group showed up en masse to incite much disorder and tried to force the congressman into a "town hall" by use of strong-arming and shouting. Again, if my 8-year-old knows that when two people are in a conversation, you are to respect those people and wait your turn, and that trying to force things to be your way though bully tactics is not acceptable behavior, what excuse do Mr. Fitzpatrick and his assemblage have?
I heard the congressman ask for a "timeout" repeatedly and had I been in the situation, I would have done much the same. They behaved like pugnacious children clamoring for attention with complete indifference for those who respected the rules.
I heard the congressman ask them to sign in and wait like other constituents who came to see him. But again, the mob was concerned with its own agenda, and showed absolute disregard to those whose time they wasted with their grandstanding and badgering.
In the end, the congressman went back to work meeting with and helping the people while Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was himself a congressman and therefore should have known better than anyone else what the one-on-one meetings with constituents are for, continued to be disruptive with a speech worthy of a typical politician who obviously cares more about his campaign than the people he hopes to serve.
I deplore the example this is setting for the next generation. What value has our rights and freedoms without the respect and intelligence of using them appropriately? In a democracy, our voices are to be heard equally rather than running roughshod for political gain.
Maggie Mancini
Abington, PA
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