Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today to speak about something that is affectionately known as the Durbin amendment. During the Dodd- Frank debate that occurred about a year ago and upon its passage, there was an amendment brought to the floor called the Durbin amendment which dealt with debit cards and regulating debit cards. This was an amendment that never had been debated. There had never been a hearing on this amendment. In the height of people being very concerned about the large financial institutions in our country, this was an amendment that passed. I voted against it. I thought it was bad for us as a country to allow the Federal Reserve to begin setting prices for specific industries as the Durbin amendment called for. In any event, the Durbin amendment became law. I know numbers of people in this body have been contacted since that time about the effects of the Durbin amendment. What the Durbin amendment did was tell the Federal Reserve to set prices on debit cards based on incremental cost. Let me say that one more time: based on incremental cost. In other words, when a business does business, there are fixed costs and there are incremental costs. It would be like saying to a pizza company that sells pizzas across the counter that the only thing they can charge for is the dough. They couldn't charge for anything else that went into the cost of the product that was being sold. I am obviously opposed to price setting.…”