Affordability Agenda Addressing core costs of modern life with reforms emphasizing supply, competition, institutional discipline, and effective governance—not price controls or expanding subsidies.Click to expand the content and learn more from our scholars.

Treat control of crime and disorder as a good unto itself.

Resist the fallacy that because incarceration is expensive, we should do less of it for taxpayers’ sake. Loosening the social controls exerted by police departments and prisons carries its own price.

At the state level: (1) relax unattainable greenhouse-gas reduction goals; (2) take a technology-agnostic approach to adding new low-emissions power sources; and (3) allow or require utilities to disclose the precise reasons for price increases.

At the federal level: (1) stop states from abusing the Clean Water Act to halt other states’ development projects; and (2) reform the National Environmental Policy Act permitting process.

Rather than supplying additional funding streams, federal policymakers should insist that Medicare and Medicaid can pay only indirectly for newly developed medical technologies.

At the private level, control over the purchase of insurance should switch from employers to individual workers, who care more about changing prices. This would incentivize innovators to reduce costs.

Tighten loan eligibility at the margins, to ease demand and put downward pressure on prices.

Expand non-college pathways, focusing on stronger workforce-training and credential programs.

Embrace clear messaging around debt: the price of college is a public-policy responsibility, but debt is your responsibility.

Cut sales taxes, or at least draw public attention to their role as a stealth driver of price increases.

States and localities need to prioritize growth.

They must adopt a land-use regulatory system that meets the varied needs and preferences of their households.

Apply market-friendly regulatory reforms not just to halal carts, but across the board—including to the big-box retailers and national chains that socialists demonize.

Stop wielding regulations, delays, fines, fees, wage mandates, and hiring restrictions as weapons against business.

Repeal the RFS.

Failing that, learn the lesson that any government program favoring a particular interest group will tend to become locked in, even when it proves harmful for most Americans.

Preserve the tipped-wage credit system and refrain from imposing additional requirements on restaurants and food-delivery services.

A right-of-center approach to urban affordability would look not only at the cost of things like housing and transit but also at residents’ tax burdens and the quality of public services offered in return. Instead of suppressing the market, government should make room for abundant job opportunities and new housing options.

In New York City, leaders need to reestablish norms of public safety; provide residents with service performance commensurate to what they pay; reform or close failing public schools; and hold the line on taxes for both businesses and residents.