Madam Speaker, voluntary is not good enough. Other countries have looked at it. They have studied the issues and determined that rates of 0.5% in Australia and 0.3% in the European Union are more appropriate.
Small business owners simply do not have the negotiating power of large multinational corporations like Walmart, which recently cut a deal with Visa to reduce its credit card bills. When MasterCard and Visa report to the federal government on the results of self-audits on voluntary reductions, the preferential fees that they are providing to large retailers are incorporated into their results. In other words, smaller businesses are subsidizing preferential deals for large multinationals.
Will the government take immediate action in support of small business or will it continue to allow the banks and the payment industry to gouge our middle-class job creators?