Why Do Teacher’s Unions Care About Interchange Regulation?

By Simon Johnson

By Mike Konczal You want to know how I can tell that the interchange reform in the Senate bill was a surprise story? Because the last-minute lobbying campaign against it is so obviously a thrown-together, half-baked effort by the biggest banks.

By Mike Konczal You want to know how I can tell that the interchange reform in the Senate bill was a surprise story? Because the last-minute lobbying campaign against it is so obviously a thrown-together, half-baked effort by the biggest banks.

Felix Salmon submits: Yesterday saw an enormous lobbying effort from the credit union industry; John Magill, the chief lobbyist for the Credit Union National Association, told me that there were over 400,000 “contacts” with Congress this week.

Kevin Grewal submits: The Durbin Amendment seeks to reduce credit and debit card networks from imposing anti-competitive restrictions and high transaction fees on small businesses, merchants and government agencies ... and could provide positive support for some large-cap and regional banks.

By Simon Johnson

Kevin Carey notes that even as state-level Republicans are waging war on public sector unionism, congressional Republicans are basically giving the country’s largest teacher’s union what it wants in repudiating the reform trajectory of No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, and all the rest:

USA consumers pay huge fees on debit cards not found in most other rich countries. Other countries provide debit cards with much cheaper fees than USA banks mandate now given their anti-competitive oligopolistic pricing power. I haven’t seen anyone (that isn’t in the pay of banks) arguing for keeping excessive fees in place. But there are lots of people being paid by the banks (including most likely, “your” representative).