Once again, House Republicans are locked in battle with each other over just how much they can screw their own voters and still get away with it. This time it's their effort to repeal a clause of the Dodd-Frank law that caps the fees banks can charge retailers for processing debit card transactions. The Screw All Regulations caucus, including Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas-of-course), wants to do away with those limits because freedomz; other House Republicans are worried that voting to bring back yet another way banks can gouge Americans might, regardless of the raw appeal of again screwing their constituents for no good reason, come back to bite the party.
“If Durbin is repealed, two major companies will have over 80 percent share of the market [and] will dictate the price of routing fees — all to the detriment of consumers,” Ross said, referring to the banking fee cap’s nickname for it’s original author, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Ross, who wants the bill to pass without the cap repeal, called the provision an “impediment to passage” that “will put members in a position of having to take a vote between two groups that they support: retailers and bankers.”
“To politically do that, knowing that the Durbin repeal will not survive the Senate, would do greater damage to our conference,” he continued.
Now there's a profile in courage. Never mind the consumers who are going be gouged by the inevitable price increases retailers will be obliged to pass on; the real tragedy here is that the banking lobbyists want one thing, the retailers' lobbyists want another thing, and having to choose between them in a tough vote means one side or the other might not be writing House Republicans fat checks come this time next year.
So they're at a temporary impasse. Do they keep the fee caps in place, infuriating the bankers who had counted on Republican rule to reverse annoying regulations imposed after the banks nearly caused another Great Depression? Or do they gut them, infuriating merchants and, just oh by-the-way, every single American who ever goes shopping? This is a tough issue for House Republicans, because they are very dumb, and it's all likely for show anyway because the House has no control over whether Senate Republicans will follow their lead.