I think its a rent seeker when uncle sam either dictates you give them money or buries you in shit you have to pay acme shovel co to dig yourself out of.
I think its more tenable for governments to provide an optional sales tax as a service and remit the money to the states. One singular report to file one party to pay.
If the service they're providing is only necessary because of artificial barriers, then basically yes. The banking cartel that controls the payment system is a huge fan of collecting economic rents, yes.
Yeah, that's kind of the point. Credit cards are mostly supplied by a couple huge companies that aren't interested in improving their rates. It's very rent-seeking, even though there are very feasible alternatives that cost an order of magnitude or two less.
They aren't interested in improving their rates because providing a competitive credit card in the US isn't cheap. You've got cards that provide 2% flat cash back (Citi Double Cash, for example), or cards that provide even higher benefits on rotating or fixed categories. Interchange fees aren't going to drop unless American cardholders are okay with dropping these benefits, and seeing as merchants aren't likely to share the savings I don't see that happening.
The time to lower interchange fees was before reward programs became standard, interest is where card issuers make their money.
I think its more tenable for governments to provide an optional sales tax as a service and remit the money to the states. One singular report to file one party to pay.