Mr. Smith Goes to Washington--to Lobby about Gift Card Commerce?

Is it just me, or is Uncle Sam looking more and more like Big Brother every day?

Researching a work assignment about gift card commerce, I happened on a website (National Restaurant Association at http://www.restaurant.org/government/state/giftcards/bills_giftcards.cfm) chock full of reports on legislation about gift card commerce. Before this assignment, like most of us taxpayers, I have to admit that I didn't really know the term "gift card commerce" existed. Imagine my surprise that some of my tax dollars have been paying for ongoing legal battles over fifty-dollar gift certificates!

Now, I'm no financial whiz kid, but I did all right in basic math. There's a little voice in my head telling me that we could be using our tax dollars for better schools or housing the homeless instead of legislating whether or not restaurant owners have to "record the sale information for any gift card over $50.00 & to provide a numbered transaction receipt."

If you scan this website's content, you see that we have gift card commerce legislation occurring in every state—thus occupying our lawmakers in every state.

The more I think about it, the more irritated I get. Isn't it hard enough to run a business like a restaurant without having to worry about being sued over a small-potatoes issue like gift card commerce? Lest you think these gift card commerce issues are big potatoes, read a few of the entries on the web page yourself. In Minnesota, for example, they want the law to require the expiration date to appear "in capital letters in at least 10-point font on the front of the gift certificate or gift card." Your Minnesota tax dollars at work.

One item (Wisconsin) states that the issue was referred to the Senate Veterans, Homeland Security, Military Affairs and Small Business Committee. Doesn't Homeland Security have better things to do?

But now that I'm on my soapbox, I have to give vent to something that bothers me even more than wasting our tax dollars on gift card commerce legislation. This issue, like the fast-food fatties and similar issues clogging our courts, is really a symptom of something much more insidious in our national culture: a need to shift the blame.

This gift card commerce issue is just a symptom of a larger disease. We want Big Brother to take care of all our problems (as long as we don't have to raise taxes, of course). Americans as a whole want the government to resolve all our problems, at a huge cost. Case in point: There's a link on this gift card commerce page to "obesity lawsuit & menu labeling bills." Along with making restaurant owners worry about gift card commerce issues, we're now asking them to take responsibility for our national weight problem.

I'll admit that I've battled my weight for most of my life, and I've eaten my share of fries. But no one put a gun to my head and forced me to eat them. By the way, I had a pretty good idea they weren't going to make me look like Paris Hilton. And I didn't need a government-mandated calorie total on the package to help me figure that out.

We've become a litigious society in which we'd rather pay attorneys to fight our battles than address the root of the problem in our own weaknesses. Ever hear of the Twinkie defense? Accused of a crime, a California man claimed he was driven to it by his reaction to eating a Twinkie. He was acquitted. A woman is burned by hot coffee, sues, and wins.

Outrageous enough to make headlines, these infamous cases are the tip of the iceberg. Read the gift card commerce legislation blurbs, and you'll see that—global warming or no global warming—this iceberg just keeps growing. And like it or not, we taxpayers just keep paying for it.

Karen Todd is a writer for 10x Marketing. To find out more about gift card commerce and bankcard services visit Verus Card Services.