Democrats say they will make life more affordable for Americans.
What a joke. People should ask:
If Democrat policies lower costs for Americans, why are all the most expensive cities in the U.S. run by Democrats?
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Where were these concerned politicians when their party and President Joe Biden blew up federal spending and drove inflation to 9% — the highest since Democrat Jimmy Carter was president?
Show me one Democrat who backs sustainable measures that actually lower the cost of living, rather than fake fixes like freezing prices.
Why is it so expensive to live in cities and states run by Democrats? Because they impose high taxes, costly labor regulations, expensive green mandates and restrictions on new building that drive construction costs higher.
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New York, San Francisco, Boston, San Jose, and Honolulu are the costliest cities in the U.S. All are run by Democrat mayors and are in states with Democrat governors. Of the top ten most expensive towns in the country, all but one – Miami – are similarly ruled by one party – the Democrat Party. The list includes Washington, D.C. and Seattle.
Why is that? First, high taxes. New York has the highest personal income tax in the U.S.; California, Hawaii and Massachusetts are close behind. Why are taxes high? Because these cities and states spend too much money and have to finance their largesse by taxing their citizens.
New York, for instance, will spend some $254 billion this year, up an astonishing $100 billion from ten years ago. There are roughly 20 million people living in New York State; Florida has 23 million residents, but a budget of only $117 billion. To repeat: Florida has more citizens, but is spending about half as much as the wastrel government of New York. Naturally, Florida’s taxes are lower, and so is the cost of living.
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People living in blue states don’t just get socked with high taxes, in other words, they also get hit with a high cost of living, because businesses pass along those taxes by raising prices.
Blue cities and states also hit employers with costly labor rules and regulations, which find their way into the prices people pay. In California, for instance, the government demands high pay as well as complicated work scheduling and overtime rules. When the Golden State demanded fast-food companies pay their employees $20 per hour, for example, more than 10,000 workers in that business lost their jobs. More painful for consumers, a study by the Berkeley Research Group found that menu prices increased 14.5% due to the $20 wage hike. So much for helping the “little guy.”
And how about rents? In the recent New York City mayoral race, affordable housing was a big issue, helping to elect democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. It was clever of the 34-year-old candidate, who has never held a private-sector job, to campaign on solving a problem created by his own party.
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Mamdani is right that rents are too high in New York City. Construction costs are out of control in the Big Apple mainly because it takes too long to build, thanks to cumbersome approval processes that require sign-off from multiple agencies and the City Council, which is notoriously anti-business. Time is money in real estate.
Numerous changes to that onerous regulatory process were passed by voters in the latest election, but the mayor-elect has so far not committed to reducing the power of bureaucrats to throw a proverbial spanner in the works. Instead, Mamdani proposes freezing rents on some apartments, even though studies of such measures show that over time rent caps reduce the housing stock and drive rents higher. He prefers a failed policy to one which would reduce the bureaucratic daisy chain of approvals that fatten local politicians’ coffers and sustainably drive down costs.
Democrats have been seeking for an issue with which they could puncture President Trump’s popularity and unite their riven party. He was elected by a majority of Americans partly because he campaigned on “fixing” the inflation that drove Biden’s approval ratings into the gutter. While he has not entirely succeeded, he has made progress in three important ways:
* Removing the costly green energy mandates demanded by his predecessor;
* Reducing taxes for middle-class Americans and for businesses, who will feel that relief next year;
* Deporting or causing millions of people in the U.S. illegally to leave on their own, relieving pressure on housing and healthcare caused by the sudden influx of millions of people.
However, President Trump also adopted tariffs on imported goods that resulted in modest price hikes on items like clothing and washing machines. The liberal media predicted the White House’s tariff regimen was likely to send prices soaring; in recent weeks those alarmists have backed off their dire predictions, but there is no doubt that the tariffs have slightly boosted inflation.
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In particular, tariffs drove prices on certain goods, like coffee and bananas, up substantially. Just recently, President Trump rescinded those levies, which will help shoppers.
Elsewhere, healthcare premiums for the 7% of Americans using Obamacare are set to rise substantially in the new year. This sudden leap in ACA premiums is being blamed on President Donald Trump, but the GOP should remind voters that Obamacare was voted in by Democrats alone, and that they are also responsible for not only the premium subsidies that aimed to hide the real cost of insurance, but also their termination as of December 31.
Over the next year, President Trump and the GOP will have to protect Obamacare customers from losing their healthcare. At long last they must craft some changes to the ACA that will deliver on its original promise to make healthcare insurance more affordable to all Americans.
Meanwhile, Republicans need to drive down the cost of living through lower taxes and reduced regulations. Those are real policies that work, not TikTok sound bites.
