June 17, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Miss free checking accounts? Blame Dodd-Frank, the Durbin amendment and the Fed.
Remember free
checking accounts? In 2009, 76 percent of banks used to offer free checking
accounts to their customers. By 2015, it had hit a low of 37 percent and in
2019 the number stood at 42 percent. Why such a drastic drop? It’s all thanks
to the financial crisis and the ensuing Dodd-Frank financial legislation and
regulation, including the amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), capping
interchange bank fees at the behest of big retailers. Interchange bank fees are
those that banks collect from merchants who accept debit card payments.
Dodd-Frank authorized the Federal Reserve to regulate those fees. Because of
the Durbin amendment, banks saw between a $6.6 billion to $8 billion drop in
revenue per year. To offset the lost revenue of these regulations, banks have
resorted to increasing fees for holding a checking account via monthly
maintenance fees which topped an estimated $3.5 billion in 2017. Making matters
worse, now large retailers and hospitality businesses are at it again and
urging the federal government to now go after credit card interchange fees,
which if acted upon will again simply be passed on to consumers in other ways,
including with higher interest rates. It never ends. By limiting the fees
associated with merchants processing debit cards, and overdraft fees, the
revenue losses were simply put on consumers.
Video: Whatever the hell Joe Biden is on! Coming soon!
He is a blunder
machine and he is the Democratic nominee for president. Joe Biden had a
lifetime of gaffes and other things a Republican would be arrested for. We have
a special look.
Justice Clarence Thomas is right, the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and needs to be protected
Americans for
Limited Government President Rick Manning: “Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas is correct in expressing his concern that the Supreme Court of the
United States is treating the Second Amendment individual right to keep and
bear arms as a redheaded step-child of the Bill of Rights. Americans from all
walks of life have observed and in some cases experienced in real-time the
pressing need to be able to own and carry firearms in the past few weeks, yet
the Supreme Court continues to allow its two established precedents in the
Heller and MacDonald decisions to effectively be trampled by lower courts and
states which thumb their noses at both the Supreme Court and the United States
Constitution through egregious violations of the rights of law-abiding
citizens. It is the Supreme Court’s job to protect citizen’s rights, yet while
the Court has proven itself willing to rewrite statutes related to workplace
discrimination based upon sex that Congress has expressly refused to change,
they, once again are unwilling to protect the rights of Americans that are
plainly written into the Bill of Rights and which they have previously
affirmed. One of the great frustrations
many Americans have with the federal courts including the Supreme Court, is
that left-wing jurists go to any length in attempts to thwart the will of the
people when it comes to immigration and other important security topics, but
when it comes to the Second Amendment, a presumably textual driven Supreme
Court is flaccid while the left abuses the rights of citizens.”
Miss free checking accounts? Blame Dodd-Frank, the Durbin amendment and the Fed.
By Robert Romano
Remember free checking accounts? In 2009, 76 percent of banks used to offer free checking accounts to their customers, according to Bankrate.com. By 2015, it had hit a low of 37 percent and in 2019 the number stood at 42 percent.
Why such a drastic drop?
It’s all thanks to the financial crisis and the ensuing Dodd-Frank financial legislation and regulation, including the amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), capping interchange bank fees at the behest of big retailers.
Interchange bank fees are those that banks collect from merchants who accept debit card payments. Dodd-Frank authorized the Federal Reserve to regulate those fees.
After the Durbin amendment, banks saw between a $6.6 billion to $8 billion drop in revenue per year, according to a study by Brad Hubbard of the University of Chicago Law School.
In addition, separate Fed-mandated rules limiting consumer overdraft fees also contributed in part to losses of bank revenue, then- IBISWorld analyst Eben Jose noted in the Bankrate.com article: "That had a drastic kind of an effect on their revenue for retail banking… They need to find a way to make up for these fees in other ways."
In 2009, prior to the regulation, overdraft fees hit a high of $37 billion. In 2017, that number was down to $34 billion, with calls for even stricter rules following.
As a result, to offset the lost revenue of these regulations, banks have resorted to increasing fees for holding a checking account. According to Mybanktracker.com’s Simon Zhen, monthly maintenance fees which topped an estimated $3.5 billion in 2017.
So, by limiting the fees associated with merchants processing debit cards, and overdraft fees, the revenue losses were simply lumped into the cost of having a checking account. But is anyone surprised?
This is what always happens when the government steps in to increase taxes or regulations on private companies. Invariably, the costs are passed on to consumers one way or another.
Making matters worse, now large retailers and hospitality businesses are at it again and urging the federal government to now go after credit card interchange fees, which if acted upon will again simply be passed on to consumers in other ways, including with higher interest rates. It never ends.
That is why President Donald Trump and Congress should work together to block any expansion of the Durbin amendment in any phase four or other legislation that comes up this year, and if anything should roll back these regulations that punish lower income Americans who are forced to pay greater bank fees at the behest of certain business interests.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Video: Whatever the hell Joe Biden is on! Coming soon!
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Justice Clarence Thomas is right, the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and needs to be protected
June 16, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising Justice Clarence Thomas for criticizing the Supreme Court for not taking any cases to defend the Second Amendment:
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is correct in expressing his concern that the Supreme Court of the United States is treating the Second Amendment individual right to keep and bear arms as a redheaded step-child of the Bill of Rights. Americans from all walks of life have observed and in some cases experienced in real-time the pressing need to be able to own and carry firearms in the past few weeks, yet the Supreme Court continues to allow its two established precedents in the Heller and MacDonald decisions to effectively be trampled by lower courts and states which thumb their noses at both the Supreme Court and the United States Constitution through egregious violations of the rights of law-abiding citizens.
“It is the Supreme Court’s job to protect citizen’s rights, yet while the Court has proven itself willing to rewrite statutes related to workplace discrimination based upon sex that Congress has expressly refused to change, they, once again are unwilling to protect the rights of Americans that are plainly written into the Bill of Rights and which they have previously affirmed. One of the great frustrations many Americans have with the federal courts including the Supreme Court, is that left-wing jurists go to any length in attempts to thwart the will of the people when it comes to immigration and other important security topics, but when it comes to the Second Amendment, a presumably textual driven Supreme Court is flaccid while the left abuses the rights of citizens.
“The failure of the Supreme Court to take up and address fundamental freedom issues combined with previous contortions to uphold Obamacare and other Constitutionally dubious government overreaches brings into question whether fighting massive political wars over who sits on the federal bench is worth the time, energy and effort.”
