The Big-Box Bill: A Government Handout to Walmart and Target

(Source: DNYUZ)

The following content is sponsored by the Electronic Payments Coalition.

How soon we forget. It wasn’t too long ago that Republican legislators acknowledged Walmart’s growth represented a threat to Main Street businesses. Economists even coined the term “the Walmart Effect” to refer to the economic pain felt by local businesses when a large company like Walmart opens a location in a community and squeezes out local mom-and-pop shops. Despite the not-too-distant past, Walmart has convinced a handful of lawmakers in Congress that the $600+ billion company needs a government handout.

In June, big-box retailers led by Walmart and Target were successful in getting Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Peter Welch (D-VT) to introduce legislation that would create new credit card routing mandates. These mandates would allow Walmart to process credit card transactions based solely on what is cheapest for them without regard to the value that consumers derive from rewards and many other benefits. This “Big-Box Bait-and-Switch” would add billions of dollars to the bottom lines of mega-retailers every year while eliminating almost all the funding that goes towards popular credit card rewards programs, weakening cybersecurity protections, and reducing access to credit, particularly for Americans that need it most.