Ever since Bank of America and other banks announced their monthly fees for using debit cards for purchases (BofA is leading the way on this with their $5 monthly fee), I’ve heard an elevated amount of conversation about it from friends and passersby. Most public policy doesn’t grab the person in the street, but charging five bucks to use your own money to buy something has hit a nerve. It’s not for nothing that BofA’s website went down today.

We have all kinds of problems (unemployment, foreclosure, not to mention two wars) that we seem unable to do anything about. What we can do in the United States Congress is engage in a months-long lobby bonanza between the largest retailers in the country and the largest banks in the country over how they will split up the fee for when you purchase products via debit card. And finally, that battle over swipe fees gets a vote today.

A couple weeks ago, we saw the enormous lobby culture massing around swipe fees, the relatively obscure issue that determines where billions of dollars go between banks and retailers. The important thing to start with is that this was already determined through a public process. Last year, Congress held a vote, Dick Durbin got over 60 of his colleagues to support him, the measure survived reconciliation, passed into law, and the Federal Reserve began to implement the rule. The system, therefore, worked. What banks are doing is trying to roll back the clock on the reform. They were paying attention to other matters in FinReg and now they have circled back to this. Because they have money and influence, they think they can just nullify a year’s worth of policymaking.

The amendment to the Dodd-Frank legislation reducing the cost of interchange fees for debit and credit cards passed with a supermajority in the Senate. It went through the normal process and it won. Now the banks, in a slightly stronger position than during the Dodd-Frank debate, are trying to get the changes delayed, and effectively killed. They’re using a silly argument that this will result in higher costs for consumers. They have the ability to control those costs.

The Federal Reserve issued rules that would cut debit fees significantly, fulfilling the promise of Dodd-Frank that these interchange fees would get reduced. This provides a boost to retailers and ultimately consumers and employees, who would see lower prices and reduced pressure to cost-cut. It really impacts the credit card industry, who has been making lots of money off of these debit card fees, even though the transaction for the back costs next to nothing.

An odyssey that started back in December in the House could finally culminate today, with the finishing touches put on the Wall Street reform bill as the conference committee winds up its work. With so many consequential issues still yet to be fully decided, it’s hard to know how to judge that finished product.

I’ve been telling you about the critical concessions in the last days of the FinReg conference committee. Let’s step back a second. This bill won’t end too big to fail. It won’t protect the country to enough of a degree in the event of the next crisis. But it could do some positive things that would head in that direction. It could balance the relationship between the country and the oligopoly of giant, unaccountable banks. It could give consumers a fighting chance to protect themselves from getting screwed repeatedly. And as a financial reform bill, it’s a pretty solid anti-predatory lending bill. Heck, I’d cleave those pieces off, support it as a standalone, and hail a good progressive victory.

Yesterday was a singularly unimpressive day at the Wall Street reform conference committee, with concessions and industry giveaways galore.

After the first week of the conference committee for Wall Street reform, I would call the verdict middling. Reformers have won some victories – all hedge funds and private equity firms will have to register with the SEC, credit rating agencies will be on the hook for standard liability for negligence, the Fed audit is more robust and ongoing.

The New York Times has a preview of the conference committee for the Wall Street reform bill, which the President would like completed by the time of the next G-20 conference in Toronto at the end of the month. They narrow down the whole negotiation to basically three proposals expected to be the major sticking [...]