Welcome to Flyertalk.
Where is the analysis to support this claim? Merchants benefit from accepting payment by card, and they should pay for the service. I do understand that merchants would prefer to pay less, but to suggest that they should pay nothing needs further explanation.
Merchants benefit from making a sale, whether it is paid by cash, check or card. Merchants should pay for whatever their banks charge for card processing hardware/software and for administering the merchant's account. The card holder should pay for the convenience of making a purchase with the card, including the swipe fee and charges for "rewards" or whatever else, etc. As it is, the Federal Reserve Bank has estimated that in the U.S. overall, charges to merchants for card use inflate prices to everyone by 2.24%. That's up from an estimate of 1.7% in a study the Fed did in 2018.
You could consider that to be a tax -- and it is taxation without representation that can and should be eliminated just by requiring that the card holder be billed for all of the fees and other charges that arise when a card is used. Durbin's bill doesn't go far enough.