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Many Americans were surprised recently to see a coalition of the nation's most radical politicians (including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.) band together to introduce tough legislation against the peer-to-peer payment companies that have improved our lives (PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, CashApp, etc.). Sen. Blumenthal even went so far as to send another letter to the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) demanding an investigation into Zelle.
I was not surprised to see these developments. During my time on the US Congressional Financial Services Committee, particularly the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, I cannot tell you how many times I witnessed my Democratic colleagues directly or indirectly attempting to attack these emerging payment processors.
Most Americans know that big government politicians have long been hostile towards Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies today. Of course, they see them as competitors to the hegemony of the US Dollar, which the radical Left relies on to fund their reckless spending priorities. These progressive politicians believe that regulating these private market alternatives and eventually replacing them with government-run cryptocurrencies is the only sustainable way forward.
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But few Americans realize that the same big government politicians have also been hostile towards PayPal, Venmo and other peer-to-peer payment processors for much longer, and for the exact same reasons.
The radical left is working hard to destroy payment processors like Zelle. (Photo Illustration: Thiago Prudencio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Biden administration officials, especially CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, have been aggressively urging Americans to stop using PayPal, Zelle, and the like as “substitutes for traditional bank and credit union accounts,” laughingly claiming that there are security concerns. But their pleas have not fooled the American people, and millions of people continue to use these new financial tools every day.
Back to the bill introduced in July: With no other options left to get its way other than government coercion, the administration handed the ball to its favorite relief pitchers in Congress — Warren, Waters and Blumenthal — and told them to rewrite the nation's laws in its favor.
A new bill introduced by this left-wing cabal, the Protecting Consumers from Payment Fraud Act, would hold peer-to-peer payment processors liable for any fraudulent activity that occurs on their platforms, meaning these companies would have to pay every time an American is tricked by a bad actor into sending them money for goods and services that don't exist.
But few Americans realize that the same big government politicians have also been hostile towards PayPal, Venmo and other peer-to-peer payment processors for much longer, and for the exact same reasons.
The bill's proponents claim that the bill is necessary to protect public safety, but we all know that this argument is completely nonsensical: fraud accounts for less than 1 percent of transactions on these platforms.
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Do consumers make mistakes sometimes? Sure, but these errors aren't due to security flaws in these apps.
The mistakes consumers make with PayPal and Zelle are no different than the occasional bank wire transfer that regular citizens make to scammers, yet we haven't heard the Biden administration or its lawmakers call on banks to make these payments on their behalf. Why?
PayPal is one of the payment processors targeted by the new law. (CyberGuy.com)
Well, that's because the purpose of the bill against PayPal and Zelle isn't actually to protect the public.
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The real purpose of this bill is twofold: first, to make it financially difficult for these companies to continue operating, and second, to spread negative press about these companies' operations in order to reduce their massive user base.
The American people will not be fooled by their threats, and neither will the rest of Congress. I am confident that the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee will kill this bill before it even gets a chance to be considered. Millions of Americans would benefit.
