Colorado Politics reports that Gov. Jared Polis is now getting buried under a lobbying avalanche over Senate Bill 26-134, Colorado’s swipe-fee bill, because apparently the most controversial moral question in Denver is whether Visa and Mastercard should get to skim a fee off the sales tax your corner restaurant never got to keep in the first place.
That is where we are now: Colorado businesses collect taxes for the government, hand that money over, and the credit-card machine still takes its little bite like a raccoon in a dumpster wearing a banker vest.
The bill is simple enough for a normal human to understand, which means it has become impossible for the political class to discuss without forming rival coalitions, legal theories, economic hostage videos, and a full D.C. knife fight. SB 26-134 would stop credit-card companies from charging businesses swipe fees on the sales-tax portion of a transaction.
Swipe fees, also called interchange fees, run about 2% to 3% every time a customer uses a credit card. Retailers hate them. Banks, credit unions, card networks, and airlines are warning that messing with them could wreck rewards programs, cause checkout chaos, trigger lawsuits, and maybe make civilization forget how to board Group 4.
The bill barely crawled through the Senate, 18-17, after sitting around for nearly two months. Then it cruised through the House with help from Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran. Now Polis has 30 days to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature while every lobbyist within smelling distance of a billable hour tries to crawl through his office vents.
And sweet mother of DIA concourse delays, the D.C. cavalry has arrived.
On one side are restaurants, hotels, breweries, liquor stores, small businesses, and retailers saying: stop charging us fees on tax money we don’t keep. That is not exactly Trotsky with an apron. That is a business owner saying, “Why am I paying a private toll on government money?”
On the other side are banks, credit unions, credit-card companies, airlines, and their coalitions warning that your precious rewards points may be in danger. Nothing says “public policy debate” like a giant financial ecosystem grabbing the consumer by the neck and whispering, “Nice little airline miles program you got there. Shame if somebody regulated the skim.”
The airlines even parachuted in Chris Sununu from Airlines for America to warn Polis about uncertainty in rewards systems and the economic impact of airline-branded credit cards. Because when Colorado restaurants complain about getting clipped on taxes, the natural response is obviously to summon the sacred priesthood of travel points to explain why your burrito bowl must continue subsidizing somebody’s future upgrade to premium economy.
Credit unions say the exemption for Colorado-chartered institutions under $60 billion may not work, and payment systems are not built to carve out taxes. Fine. That is at least a real implementation argument. But notice how the system is always miraculously sophisticated enough to extract fees from every microscopic corner of commerce, yet suddenly turns into a confused golden retriever when asked not to charge a fee on taxes.
The bill was amended to require businesses that save money to pass savings to consumers or use them for employee pay and benefits. That is the legislature’s way of saying, “We totally trust small businesses, but also here is a leash, a clipboard, and a compliance migraine.” Classic Colorado governance: identify a real problem, then duct-tape a homework assignment to the solution.
For normal Coloradans, this is the same tired racket with a new payment terminal. Everything costs more. Every transaction has a fee. Every fee has a lobbyist. Every lobbyist has a moral panic. And somehow the people actually running restaurants, shops, and local businesses are expected to eat the cost, smile for the tourism brochure, and pretend Colorado is still affordable because some consultant in Denver found a chart.
Polis can sign it, veto it, or duck it. But let’s not pretend this is complicated: if your business is collecting taxes for the state, the card cartel does not need a little dessert off the top.
Source: Colorado Politics
Just Stop It
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