News

LMC joined LBM Dealers around the country last week at the NLBMDA Legislative conference in Washington, D.C. to gain the support of state representatives for the following legislation:

Ship It Act : The Safer Highways and Increased Performance for Interstate Trucking (SHIP IT) Act (H.R.471) is a bipartisan bill that addresses truck labor shortages and supply chain issues for delivering freight by increasing shipping capacity, lessening burdens on truck drivers and providing incentives to recruit and retain new drivers. Disruptions in our trucking supply chain continue to drive up costs and create uncertainty for American businesses. We need to recruit, train and retain truck drivers to keep our supply chain moving, while also updating best practices to improve trucking to fit our modern economy.

America is experiencing an 80,000-truck driver shortage, which has a negative ripple effect for every part of the
supply chain. Meanwhile, the median age of the truck driver in the industry is between 51 and 52-years old.
Further, there is only one parking space available for every 11 semi-trucks on the road—yet there is a need for
even more trucks to deliver freight.

Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act :The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act is a bipartisan bill that strengthens the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to increase investment in affordable housing and build 2 million new homes across the country over the next decade, while supporting nearly 3 million jobs and adding $120 billion in additional tax revenue and more than $346 billion in wages and business income. This housing and the associated economic activity is more critical than ever to address our country’s affordable housing crisis. Since 1986, LIHTC has financed the development of over 3.6 million homes for more than 8 million low-income families. Over the past 30 years, the Housing Credit has generated approximately $643 billion in wages and business income and $223 billion in tax revenues, supporting approximately 5.7 million jobs. Without LIHTC, there would be virtually no private investment in affordable housing since it is fundamentally uneconomic to build housing that very low-income people can afford.

Credit Card Competition Act.: The Credit Card Competition Act is a bipartisan bill that addresses excessive credit card swipe fees for small businesses by allowing access to more credit card payment network options. Since 2010, credit card fees have risen from around 2.00% to over 2.25% on average – which equates to an estimated $7+ billion in extra annual costs for business and consumers. This legislation would help fix a broken market that has allowed Wall Street megabanks and global card networks to block competition and unfairly profit at the expense of small retailers and American families.

Big banks and card networks like Visa and MasterCard charge merchants more than 2% of the customer’s total bill every time a credit card is used to make a purchase. Credit and debit card swipe fees have more than doubled over the past decade and soared 25% in 2021 alone to a record $137.8 billion. There are a dozen competitive networks that could process credit card transactions. However, the dominant credit card networks have blocked them from entering the market. Independent networks are as fast and often less costly with less fraud than the dominant global players.

Visa and MasterCard – which control 80% of the U.S. credit card market – hold a near-monopoly over credit card processing. Lack of competition results in high fees, few options and little innovation. The bill requires that credit cards be able to be routed over at least two unaffiliated networks. One could still be Visa or MasterCard while the second could be networks like NYCE, Star or SHAZAM. Those networks are currently trusted by banks and consumers alike with billions of dollars in debit card and ATM transactions each day