In a desperate attempt to garner public favor before the midterms, President Biden set his sights on a new target to distract Americans from the pressing inflation problem: overdraft fees. Those low-percentage charges issued by banks to customers who use more money than they have in their accounts are apparently dire.
Biden tweeted: “My Administration is making clear that charging Americans for a bounced check they deposit or an overdrafted bank account isn’t just wrong. It’s illegal.” In the official White House statement, he refers to these charges as “hidden fees,” discounting that bank account holders voluntarily sign off on the possibility of overdraft fees when they open an account.
Unlike Biden, most people understand that what’s illegal is using someone else’s funds without permission, not issuing a penalty for doing so.
Eliminating overdraft fees would disempower personal responsibility through government overreach and reduce the opportunity for some to open an account. Charges are a practical price for using an institution’s capital to support money mismanagement, and an underreaction, one could argue, to theft.
As it turns out, nothing is free, including using the bank’s money when you’ve overspent yours. This is bad enough, as people have begun to think that scarce things are free, but Biden says he isn’t stopping at overdraft fees.
He’s also going after what he’s branded as “surprise” fees, such as family seating fees issued by airlines, switch fees from internet and cable services, and service fees from concert and sporting venues.
Notably, he claims that these charges are more menacing than typical add-on fees and that “firms should be free to charge more to add mushrooms to your pizza.”
So, what’s more menacing about concert venues charging a service fee to cover operational costs than Pizza Hut charging for extra toppings so they can still turn a profit? There isn’t a difference.
What’s malicious is that Biden wants to penalize businesses for trying to stay profitable in a recession that he’s prolonging by addressing “problems” like these instead of the 40-year high inflation that’s removing purchasing power from consumers and hurting families.
Biden insists that these “junk fees” are undetectable by consumers and therefore unfair, and that this makes it impossible for people to compare the real costs between service providers.
Those seeking to promote more government involvement in businesses,almost always undermine individual agency. The reality is that consumers can fight against fees, take their business elsewhere, or choose to pay them if they think it’s worth it. That’s what prices in a free-enterprise system of capitalism are all about: allowing people to improve their lives.
There are always trade-offs in life, and if the Biden administration successfully removes all these fees, we can expect to see another kind of trade-off instituted in its place.
Nothing scarce is free. Every decision we make gives up something else, which economists call opportunity costs. Politicians too often think they can ignore this fact, but they do so at the peril of the people whom they serve.
This kind of overreach isn’t just insulting to Americans, it’s harmful to a free-market system that operates best with limited government. By convincing people that they’re powerless to manage their money or find the best service provider because they’re helpless against “big scary businesses,” the government creates enough public concern to justify stepping in where they have no business doing so.
The economy is suffering enough under Biden’s overregulation, Congress’ overspending, and the Fed’s overprinting; the last thing it needs is another barrier to growth and organic competition.
Biden can quit trying to kid the American public that overdraft fees, which make up less than one percent of annual household spending, are the culprit for this lackluster economy. Instead, he should scrap his failed policies and promote free-market solutions that let people prosper.
