🚨 New report from @consumerpal: "affordability crisis" narrative is more complicated than it seems. Incomes and purchasing power have broadly improved for Americans. Housing is the big exception, and it's a supply problem, not a broader economic one. Read the full report by @tzduren here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

Interchange fees rose from 2.02% to 2.36% between 2010 and 2025, about a 17% increase. Meanwhile overall consumer prices rose more than 46% over the same stretch. If card networks had real pricing power, fees should have outpaced inflation, not trailed it by more than 2x. theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

The CCCA would force big banks to offer a second, non-@Visa /@Mastercard network on every card. But the bill leans on market share math alone. Economic research shows oligopoly structure alone doesn't predict pricing behavior; low entry barriers can produce near-competitive outcomes even with few firms. Lawmakers should look at actual market behavior, not just headcount, before regulating. Read more by @tzduren and @leahmlocke here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

The signals of anticompetitive behavior in the card payments market are largely absent on close examination: @Visa (52%) and @Mastercard (25%) get called a "duopoly" in card networks. But @AmericanExpress holds nearly 20%, barely behind Mastercard. Lawmakers should look at the market’s actual behavior, not just its structure, before advancing the CCCA.

A diesel export ban would interfere with the market precisely when energy markets are under extraordinary stress. Diesel is a globally-traded commodity, and its price is ultimately determined by market forces—not government mandates. @AmerComm @consumerpal American Energy Leadership Institute @ForFreeMarkets @AFPhq @taxreformer @C3SolutionsNews @CFEconomy @CFandP @CFIFonline @ceidotorg @ConservAmerica @CASE_forAmerica @ConsumerChoiceC @FamBizCoalition Frontiers of Freedom @HispLeadFund @IPI Main Street Foundation @MarketInstitute @MtnStatesPolicy @PelicanInst @RioGrandeFndn @SBECouncil @southwestpolicy @Protectaxpayers @JoinYoungVoices

Summer peak electricity demand in North America is projected to grow by more than 224 gigawatts over the next decade. An outdated grid combined with a broken permitting process has already contributed to higher electric rates through canceled pipelines and delayed transmission lines. Congress needs to act now.

Permitting delays drive up construction costs by 24 to 30 percent over a project's timeline. A $500 million road project could see $165 million in extra costs from just a three year delay, expenses that eventually get passed on to consumers.

Less than four months remain in this legislative session to pass permitting reform. The average infrastructure project takes four or five years to get permits under NEPA, and McKinsey estimates $1.5 trillion is currently stuck in the permitting pipeline. Read more here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

Federal rules mostly target hospitals, leaving doctors' offices, imaging centers, labs, and surgical centers without real price posting requirements. Penalties should scale with hospital revenue, and transparency rules should extend to all providers so patients can actually shop for care.

Compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Rule has been weak. As of November 2024, only 21 percent of hospitals fully complied, down from 36 percent in July 2023. The max penalty is just over $2.2 million a year for large hospitals, far less than what they collect from patients. Read more by @JustinLeventhal here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

Patients rarely see a real healthcare price before an appointment, scan, or procedure. Price shopping for imaging services alone is associated with savings of up to 19 percent. Without visible prices, there is no real market for routine healthcare.

Sleep, school start times, family conditions, and socioeconomic status all have stronger evidence linking them to teen mental health than social media use does. Policymakers may get better results focusing there instead of treating social media regulation as a silver bullet. theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

28 different studies caution against social media bans and restrictions, recommending more research instead. Two reviews found bans are ineffective, and one study found effects are person specific, not population wide, suggesting broad regulation may be the wrong approach.

72 percent of adults oppose automatic surcharges, according to @pewresearch. But these fees often aren't going to tips, they're covering rising operating costs tied to tipped minimum wage laws like D.C.'s Initiative 82. theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

Chicago's tipped minimum wage ordinance led to 358 fewer jobs at full service restaurants in just two months, plus a 3.4 percent drop in new restaurant applications. Once surcharges start to offset these costs, they're hard to remove, leaving customers, workers, and owners all worse off.

That surprise 5 percent surcharge on your restaurant bill isn't just a junk fee. In D.C., restaurant owners point to Initiative 82, which raised the tipped minimum wage, as the reason they added charges to avoid raising menu prices outright. Read more by @leahmlocke here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

@Consumerpal applauds CPAAC's approval of its robocall mitigation report, which sends the @FCC recommendations to strengthen protections against illegal and unwanted robocalls. "A practical set of recommendations to better protect consumers from illegal and unwanted calls," says @Consumerpal's @Logan_Kolas, CPAAC co-chair. theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

States with high electric rates tend to have ambitious renewable mandates, cap and trade programs, or blocked natural gas pipelines. Data centers became a convenient scapegoat simply because their growth coincided with these policy choices.

Over 50% of survey respondents now blame data centers for rising electricity prices, up from 23% in less than a year. But multiple studies show ratepayers aren't subsidizing large users. Data centers' steady demand actually spreads the grid's fixed costs and often puts downward pressure on rates. Read more here: theamericanconsumer.org/2026…

When @Verizon acquired Tracphone under a 60 day unlocking rule, handset theft jumped 55 percent. Uneven unlocking rules across carriers create theft targets and an unfair playing field. The FCC should let all carriers compete on equal terms instead of imposing new mandates.

Unlocking mandates don't make phones cheaper, locking arrangements do. Carriers absorb the high upfront cost of phones and recoup it over time through locking, which is how consumers get better phones at lower monthly prices in the first place.