South By North Strategies, Ltd.

The Huffington Post breaks down the legislative fight between merchants and banks over the “interchange” fees paid by merchants whenever a customer uses a debit or credit card. The fight doesn’t inspire much confidence in Congress or the ways of Washington.

The swipe fee debate, as mundane as it may appear, is emblematic of how Washington works today — and helps explain why Congress hasn’t passed an appropriations bill in years, can’t write an annual budget, is flirting with defaulting on the country’s debt and effectively gave up on job-creation efforts in the midst of a brutal economic downturn. There are, to be sure, a variety of reasons that Congress is zombified, but one of the least understood explanations is also one of the simplest: The city is too busy refereeing disputes between major corporate interest groups.
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As swipe fees dominate the Congressional agenda, a handful of other intra-corporate contests consume most of what remains on the Congressional calendar …
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The endless meetings and evenings devoted to arbitrating duels between big businesses destroy time and energy that could otherwise be spent on higher priorities. In America today, over 13 million people are out of work and millions more are underemployed. One out of every seven is living on food stamps. One out of every five American children lives in poverty. Yet the most consuming issue in Washington — according to members of Congress, Hill staffers, lobbyists and Treasury officials — is determining how to slice up the $16 billion debit-card swipe fee pie for corporations.