dan swanson understood. he reached the point where he mastered that particular area of the law to the point where we offered a change, and the way we do business in america when it comes to debit cards. it was a long process. we had to offer an amendment on the floor in the banking reform bill and dan every step of the way was my guide as to what we could achieve. we changed the law, and we reduced the costs to the retailers and to merchants and restauranteurs. i don't have many friends in the big banking industry as a result of it, but i can tell you, we made the big banks pay $8 billion a year that they otherwise would have collected in these swipe fees. and by not collecting them, consumers and retailers were the winners. my lead advocate in that area, my expert in that area was dan swanson. he understood it, and he did it so well. he also helped save countless lives from gun violence, a topic on which he has been my top advisor. just last year he joined the group that wrote the bipartisan safer communiti