Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce the Electronic Benefits Regulatory Relief Act of 1994. This bill is also cosponsored by Senators Breaux, Domenici, Feinstein, Pressler, and Hatfield. When passed, this bill will eliminate one of the major barriers to making the banking system more accessible to those receiving government benefits like Aid to Families with Dependent Children or Food Stamps. If this bill is not passed, we will have missed an opportunity to reduce the cost of government services, and an opportunity to make the delivery of government services, more efficient and humane. This legislation is necessary to reverse a regulation issued by the Federal Reserve Board. That ruling, issued last March, said that the Electronic Benefit Transfer [EBT] cards issued by States are subject to the same liability limits as ATM or credit cards. On the surface that seems reasonable--a card is a card and there seems little reason to differentiate between cards to withdraw government benefits from a bank and cards to withdraw earnings or savings from a bank. But, as is often the case with regulations, what appears on the surface isn't necessarily the whole story.”