Commentary: Phil Kerpen - Credit card rewards are in political peril
Phil Kerpen
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The same politicians who mostly killed free checking and debit card rewards programs through government price controls are setting their sights on credit cards – and that means miles, cash back, and other rewards are now in jeopardy.
That’s a potential political earthquake, because a recent study found that 84 percent of all credit cards are rewards cards, and 70% of cardholders who make less than $20,000 a year have rewards cards. Many small businesses also rely on rewards cards – especially cash-back cards.
Those individuals and small businesses need to engage quickly to stop efforts underway by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, to build support from his colleagues to extend his 2010 price-control and network-routing regulations on debit cards to credit cards.