Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I ask the Chair to inform me when I have 1 minute of my 5 minutes remaining. I think this is an amendment that is well known to my colleagues. I have spoken on the floor several times. It is about the interchange fees charged to small businesses across America for the use of credit cards. This amendment does the following things: It directs the Federal Reserve to ensure that debit fees on debit cards are reasonable and proportional to processing costs; it stops Visa and MasterCard from imposing any competitive restrictions; it ends prohibitions on discounts for use of different network cards; it ends prohibitions on discounts for cash, debit, or credit; and it ends prohibitions on minimum purchase levels for paying with a credit card. It does not affect credit card interchange rates. We do not establish a rate. That is left entirely to the Federal Reserve to review. We do not allow discrimination against small banks or credit unions. The modification specifically prohibits any discrimination against the issuer of a credit card. A merchant may decide to favor one network over another but cannot favor one bank over another that issues a card. So there can be no discrimination against a credit union, community bank, or a large bank, for that matter. It doesn't set interchange prices. By putting a $10 billion threshold in terms of the banks issuing the cards, we literally exempt 99 percent of all banks and credit unions from the application of this law.…”