Side With Consumers: Stop the CCCA

ATR opposes the Credit Card Competition Act and urges members of Congress to oppose passage.

If enacted the bill will likely do four things:

1. Largely eliminate credit card rewards programs 
2. Put consumers personal privacy at risk because it will disincentivize future investment in fraud protection and enhanced cybersecurity 
3. Reduce the availability of revolving lines of credit
4. Enable large retailers to pad their pockets while consumers and small businesses will see little to no savings at all

In response to CCCA’s reintroduction, Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, issued the following statement: 

The Credit Card Competition Act does not, as its name implies, promote competition. The bill is an expansion of big-government policies from the Dodd-Frank Act that largely regulated debit card rewards programs out of existence in 2010. The bill empowers the Federal Reserve to regulate consumers’ credit card purchases by restricting how payments can be routed over credit card networks and forcing networks to share proprietary payment technology. These legislative provisions will reduce the interchange fee revenue that is used by credit unions and small community banks to fund better consumer data privacy protections and credit card rewards programs through points, cash back, and co-branded airline cards. This will only limit service options and perks that millions of Americans who choose to use electronic forms of payment enjoy every day. Lining woke special interest groups’ pockets should not be favored over the best interests of the consumer. 

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform

Ask yourself this: should the federal government intervene in negotiations between private parties? If you say no, then you should oppose the Durbin amendment and any extension of it to credit cards. That is exactly what it is, encroachment of the federal government into private business.

The Durbin amendment is not conservative policy.

Congress should focus on promoting competition in the payments system by eliminating regulations, not creating more.

Americans for Tax Reform, Op-ed in The Hill

Who Supports the Durbin Amendment?

• Democrats and merchants
• Using the Durbin amendment, rent-seeking merchants leveraged the federal government to pad their profits, and Democrats were more than happy to oblige.
• The Biden administration supports the Durbin Amendment
• The Biden DOJ and FTC  submitted letters of support for a Federal Reserve rule aimed at clarifying routing provisions in the Durbin Amendment
• Biden supports federal intervention in private contracts between private parties
  • Therefore, any Republican member in support of extending the Durbin Amendment to credit cards is effectively aligning themselves with the Biden administration.  Even if “only” on the routing provisions of Durbin.

Coalition Letter Opposing the Credit Card Competition Act

Click here to read the full letter: