No, it's still an idiotic law. Why should I have government-mandated access to a company's resources when I'm not a paying customer of that company?
Why not? Why should a business' desire for profits be the only consideration (especially when actual experience has shown it's possible to provide universal service and maintain good profits)? Government is supposed to represent the People too, you know.
In all seriousness, I'd be more on your side of the issue if we truly had robust competition in banking. The fact of the matter is we don't. In banking, as in so many major industries these days, the field is dominated by a small number of mega-corps who jointly control what consumers are offered and at what prices. Though we may have an illusion of choice, especially from small players, the choices usually come with enough baggage to preclude any significant market penetration.
In such a market, I think it is reasonable for government to impose constraints and force certain levels of customer service. In banking this used to be done at the state level, but once again, as is so often the case, heavy bank lobbying persuaded (i.e., bribed) our so-called "representatives" into taking away yet another facet of state authority in favor of federal non-regulation.
The inevitable result is consumers got screwed, ever-degrading service and ever-higher prices. Harkin is just trying to balance this ever so slightly, yet the usual knee-jerk partisans are predictably outraged at any suggestion government should represent people instead of profits.
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Your argument is simply that you want a free service for your own convenience and that all banks should eat the cost: you want a government-mandated free lunch. Why do you deserve it?
Well first of all, it's not free. According to the OP, the 50 cent fee was calculated to cover actual costs and preserve a decent, though not exorbitant profit margin.
Second, even if it were free, so what? As I pointed out originally, the whole promise of ATMs was they would reduce overall bank costs by reducing tellers and check-handling expenses. This was, in fact, exactly what happened.
Why then are banks somehow entitled to make additional profit on something that already saves them money? Because the market will bear it? Bullshit. That's a reasonable argument in a truly free market with healthy competition ... which is exactly what we don't have today thanks in great part to the federal government taking away states' authority at the behest of the very banks who now stand to profit from it. Screw them. Let them reap what they've sown. If they don't like it they can always go back to letting states set regulations individually.
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