10 Ways To Fix America’s Out-Of-Control Cost Of Living

Apparently leaving your house costs $100 now.

Go to the grocery store? $100. Fill up the car and grab a few things on the way home? There goes another $100. Try to buy an actual house? Maybe don’t look at Zillow unless you’re emotionally prepared.

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Americans don’t need another politician to tell them things are expensive. They have receipts.

But a new report from the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom (AAF) says there are ways to make life cheaper and, shockingly, none of them involve another trillion-dollar government spending package.

The report, “10 Ways to Improve Affordability Now,” calls affordability the “#1 issue facing the American people” and has a pretty simple solution: Get government out of the way.

“The Left’s solution is redistribution — taking money from some to subsidize others,” the report says. “AAF’s solution is unleashing Americans by removing legal barriers to prosperity at every level of the economy.”

Translation: Stop trying to spend your way out of problems government helped create.

First up? Energy.

AAF wants America drilling by expanding oil and gas access, guaranteeing recurring federal lease sales offshore and in Alaska, and fighting state-level fracking bans.

Then there’s housing.

If you’ve looked at home prices lately and wondered whether your starter home is supposed to come with a starter trust fund, AAF has an idea: Build more of them.

The group wants to cut zoning red tape, make it easier to get certain projects approved, and tie federal housing aid to states actually doing something about restrictive zoning.

More houses. More supply. Hopefully, lower prices.

The report also wants Washington to stop making life harder for franchise owners and small businesses and make it easier for companies to invest in new factories and development.

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And then there’s AI.

States are already fighting over massive new data centers and the energy needed to power them. AAF’s answer isn’t another government program. It’s fewer roadblocks. The group wants states to reject data-center moratoriums and loosen up energy markets so America can actually power the AI boom.

Not every recommendation is going to get automatic applause from conservatives though.

You know, tariffs.

AAF wants Congress to take that power back from the president, arguing that requiring lawmakers to approve tariffs would give businesses and consumers more predictable prices.

And then there’s Social Security.

The report warns that if Washington keeps kicking the can down the road, Americans could eventually be looking at an extra 5% payroll tax or a 22% benefit cut for every retiree.

AAF says start fixing it now instead of waiting until there are no good options left.

The group also wants to close a welfare loophole it says could save more than $100 billion through 2035, keep the government from capping credit card interest rates, and get rid of regulations that push Americans toward electric vehicles they may not even want.

Taken together, the 10 recommendations amount to a very different approach to the affordability problem than simply spending more money to offset higher costs.

AAF’s argument is that Washington can make life more affordable by removing government barriers that it says are helping drive up costs in the first place.

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