Political Quotes

“Mr. President, later this week we are going to consider an issue which is complicated, but it is an issue that affects every single American who ever takes a piece of plastic and pays for anything at a hotel, a restaurant, a convenience store, tuition at a school, or a charitable deduction to the Red Cross in the midst of a disaster. If you use plastic, every time that debit card--we are talking just about debit cards for this conversation--every time that debit card is swiped, there is a fee that goes to the bank that issued the card. One may think to oneself, I wonder how they negotiate those fees. The answer is, they don't. What happens is the credit card companies--the two giants, Visa and MasterCard, working through the issuing banks-- determine what is going to be charged every time someone swipes the card. What does a local grocery store have to say about it? Nothing. Their alternative is to not accept plastic at all. Visa and MasterCard say, you want to use our card, you play by our rules and our rules will tell you how much we take every time you swipe a card. I have seen it happen, and my colleagues have too, where you go into a store and shake your head because that young person in front of you just bought a candy bar and is using a piece of plastic to pay for it and you think to yourself, Why didn't they reach in their pocket and pull out a dollar bill to pay for it. Instead, they swipe the card, and we know what happens.…”