Political Quotes

“Madam President, it was about 12 years ago when I went into a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I think it was about the time that Arlen Specter was the chairman of the committee, and he had a hearing on something that I knew nothing about. It was called interchange fees. I walked in there, and the room was packed. It turned out there were two sides to a debate over this so-called interchange fee. On one side were the monsters and giants of the credit card industry, Visa and Mastercard--the duopoly that controls 73, 75 percent of the credit transactions in the United States--and on the other side were a handful of people from gas stations and restaurants. What were they talking about with the interchange fee? They were talking about the fact that credit cards issued by the banks that honor the Visa and Mastercard exchanges are required to pay fees on every transaction. What was interesting about the conversation was that when it got down to it, the retailer--the restaurant owner, the gas station--had no control over what the fee was going to be charged by the bank and Visa and Mastercard. Take it or leave it. If you want to honor our credit cards and use them in your business, you will pay the interchange fee. I kind of thought that was unusual or maybe unfair. There was no competition. There no was voice. The retailer just had to pass along the charge, and Visa and Mastercard raised the charges on a regular basis. They just did recently.…”