A Congressional Corporate Giveaway Threatens President Trump’s Stablecoin Bill
If you’ve ever wondered why Congress can’t seem to pass common-sense legislation, even when it has bipartisan support, the answer usually boils down to one thing: follow the money.
Next week, the Senate is set to consider the GENIUS Act, a smart, focused bill that creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins — digital tokens backed by the U.S. dollar.
This bill has rare bipartisan support and advances one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities: restoring American leadership in emerging technologies while protecting consumers and the U.S. dollar.
At the March White House Crypto Summit, President Trump urged Congress to pass stablecoin legislation before its summer recess.
But instead of letting the GENIUS Act move forward clean, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., is threatening to hijack it with a totally unrelated amendment — the so-called Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA).
That amendment, originally co-sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would mandate that banks provide two routing options on each credit card at their own expense.
Right now, consumer choice decides which networks succeed, not government mandates.
If a customer prefers American Express or Visa, they choose that card.
No one has a gun to businesses’ heads — they don’t need to process any cards that they don’t want to.
Fighting for consumers’ business incentivizes banks to offer the best card rewards, security protections, and service possible. But predictably, mega-retailers don’t like this.
They’d prefer everything be stripped down to the cheapest option possible, even if doing so would harm public safety or their consumers’ welfare.
Marshall’s amendment would give them exactly what they want — and it would undermine the security infrastructure of America’s credit card system, weaken fraud protections, and gut popular credit card rewards programs used by millions of working Americans at the same time, all so big-box stores can save on processing fees.
Last I checked, Republicans were supposed to support consumer choice, not big business micromanagement. More often than not some in the GOP still support a paternalistic governmental overview of business.
That’s why Marshall’s amendment would be so dangerous — it could kill Republican support for this bill, undermining a key part of President Trump’s economic agenda.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has already made it clear he’ll pull support for the GENIUS Act if Marshall’s poison pill is added. Others are likely to follow.
It would be a shame if Marshall blew up a bipartisan bill just to please The Swamp.
This isn’t the first time Marshall has tried to force this through.
Last year, he tried attaching the same amendment to the must-pass defense bill and failed.
Now, with an important innovation bill on the line, he’s back at it again — this time undermining a key part of Trump’s economic agenda.
Marshall’s motives aren’t exactly a mystery.
Both Marshall and Durbin have received generous campaign support from the retail and payments industries pushing this scheme.
According to Politico, “Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who is threatening to hold up the chamber’s passage of a three-bill ‘minibus’ government funding package over his demands for a vote on swipe fee legislation, has brought in nearly $130,000 in donations from the retail and grocery industries since arriving in the chamber two and a half years ago.”
The same goes for Durbin. The outlet reported he “raked in a little over $80,000 in contributions from its industry supporters since 2021,” while “co-sponsor Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., has taken in more than $73,000 in that same time, FEC filings show.”
Talk about selling out.
If Sen. Marshall wants to advance his credit card bill, he should do so through regular order, not by blowing up unrelated legislation that protects U.S. competitiveness and innovation.
President Trump made clear that winning the future means leading in financial technology.
The GENIUS Act reflects that vision. Linking it to a failed, divisive amendment pushed by the big-box lobby is legislative malpractice.
It’s time for the Senate to put Americans first, not corporate lobbyists.
Congress should pass the GENIUS Act clean and leave the backroom deals where they belong: in the past.
Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, cybersecurity researcher, founder of ItFunk.Org, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, is regularly published by many of the largest news organizations in the world. Read More of His Reports — Here.
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