our government paid these credit card companies over $200 million in interchange fees to visa and mastercard in the fiscal year 2007. i repeatedly asked the credit card industry and the banks to demonstrate that the rates that they've established are legit in the, to process the card transactions and, unfortunately, they have not been able to provide any data or information to suggest that the amount charged even to the federal government represents a reasonable fee. in fact, the gao report on this recently said that the fms tried to negotiate lower interchange fees with visa and mastercard and negotiations were not successful. in addition to the general questions of the fees on retail establishments across america. what is the status of your effort to make sure uncle sam isn't paying too much for the credit card companies for use of a credit card. >> this is a complicated question and to be honest with you, vint thought about this very much yet and i would be happy to spin time with you and your staff and taking a look at both questions you raise. i think you asked the gao to do a stud of o

more earmarks of like to highlight -- $2.2 billion in and requested funding for eight c-17 globe mastercardcraft. currently we have either bought or ordered 30 more c-17 cargo aircraft then is the military requirements. and this is not a jobs program, it is the backlog of c-17 so great that boeing will not begin building these aircraft for another three to five years. while secretary gates called the c-17 a terrific aircraft he stressed that the military users have a month and necessary capacity for airlift over the next 10 years. these are again testimonies to the power of the military industrial congressional complex in this washington dc. an unholy alliance between manufacturers, members of congress and lobbyists. in testimony on may 14th, 2009 secretary gates said, we have over 200 c-130 in the international currents that are uncommitted and available for use for any kind of domestic needs. all i know is i have a great deal of unused capacity in the c-130 fleet. as with the secretary of defense says so we're going to spend $504 million more for a seven c-130 hercules cargo aircraft. $3.

a report by the federal reserve bank in kansas city found that between 1996 and 2006, visa and mastercard average interchange rates increased from approximately $1.30 per $100 transaction to $1.80. that's about a 40% increase over that ten-year period of time. and the rates have gone up even further for dhardz have rewards -- cards that have rewards programs. the total amount of interchange fees collected last year was $48 billion, according to estimates of the national retail federation. that's a huge increase from 2001 when the figure was $16.6 billion. despite these rising fees, many merchants have no real choice but to accept these cards as a form of payment. consumers use their credit and debit cards for over 40% of all transactions. interchange fees cut into retailer profits and force many merchants to raise consumer prices or go out of business. as you think about it, what does it mean for the profitability of a company if the business is required to pay the credit card company 2% of the sale price on every sale? well, for some companies that operate on a very tight marge irntion i