On a snowy Thursday in the nation’s capital – with little more than a week to go until Christmas – the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank decided once again to play Santa to a select group of businesses that included the world’s wealthiest corporations. And once again, average Americans are going to be footing the bill for this fat cats’ holiday feast served up by the Fed.

The gift the Fed voted to give on Dec. 16 wasn’t free money through more quantitative easing – or whatever new name they have come up with to make inflation sound nice – although that’s probably coming up soon. Rather, under the direction of an amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” law by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Fed bestowed near-free access to the services of the vast electronic debit card payment system for some of the nation’s wealthiest retailers – with the tab to be paid for by community banks, credit unions and, of course – you the American consumer.

If the Fed’s proposed rule goes through, come next Christmas Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Home Depot and the other retailers who lobbied for this piece of corporate welfare will have even more overstuffed stockings. These and other retailers benefit greatly from consumers using cards, both in increased sales and in protection from the costs of fraud from bad checks and theft of cash, yet they have gone charging to Washington to for a regulatory “free lunch” to allow them to shift the costs of these valuable services to consumers.

In one of those rare moments of politicians acknowledging the true masters whom they serve, Sen. Durbin admitted on the Senate floor that the CEO of Walgreens, headquartered outside of Chicago in his home state, called him to complain that the transaction fees Walgreens pays to process debit and credit cards were “the fourth largest item of cost for their business.” Durbin actually argued that relieving costs of doing business for a company that makes $2 billion in annual profits was a reason for support price controls on what they pay for financial services.

But the Fed even exceeded Durbin’s order, filling the wish lists of Walgreens and other merchants while giving their customers several lumps of coal. Next holiday season, even if they are not paying vastly inflated prices for the goods they buy due to quantitative easing, American consumers will be losing their free checking, seeing the return of annual fees, and getting significantly reduced reward points for the purchases they make with plastic.

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When Washington opened the doors to taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street firms they set off a modern day gold rush for lobbyists, corporations and unions looking to get their piece of the pie. The car companies lined up for their handout. Big labor and their failed underfunded pensions are angling for bailouts. And now major retailers like Walmart and oil companies like British Petroleum are lobbying for their government created wealth transfer payment. Welcome to the world of the Durbin Amendment to the Financial Reform bill — a new bailout attached to a giant bailout bill.

A coalition of lobbyists for oil and gas companies, convenience stores, giant retailers and petroleum marketers have conned Senators into supporting a provision that is tantamount to a bailout for perfectly profitable multi-billion corporations.

There was a time when a business was looking to cut costs, they would tighten their belt and make changes within their company to ensure profitability. No longer. Now companies hire Washington lobbyists who push schemes to shift costs from the company to other companies, or worse yet, the consumer. That is exactly what the Durbin amendment to the Financial Reform bill is all about.

When giant corporations like BP and Walmart accept payment via credit cards, they pay a fee for processing services. The Durbin amendment empowers the Fed to cap the cost of those services to these industry giants. Proponents of the so-called “swipe fee” amendment have cynically argued that this amendment would somehow benefit consumers. But in reality, the Durbin amendment is a lobbyist-written, government imposed price control program that will shift the cost of accepting credit cards from mega corporations to consumers.

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From American Thinker:

Here’s one example of how state law enforcement officials have leveraged and possibly violated the law to help ACORN in return for ACORN’s political help.

In December 2004, Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch sued Capital One for failing to state in its advertisements that it could increase interest rates on credit cards. As part of a 2006 settlement, Capital One paid $749,999, of which $249,999 went to ACORN, $250,000 went to the nonprofit Legal Aid, and $250,000 to the State of Minnesota.

ACORN’s political action committee had endorsed Mike Hatch for attorney general in 1998 and 2002, and in 2006 for governor.

Read the whole article here. Of course, this could be an isolated incident, but we think it is likely this skit has played out countless times around the country.