What is the libertarian answer to the “affordability crisis”? I’ve been asked that a lot in recent months, so finally penned a piece for Reason that begins to answer.

To be clear, I’m not sure I’d call it a crisis. Affordability, as most economists would define it, requires looking at the trends in what people can buy given their incomes. So, a reasonable proxy is what’s happening to real earnings. And that metric has improved modestly over this year, so it’s not clear why there’s a crisis now that didn’t exist in January.

I’m also not sure Americans are really pissed off at “affordability” as traditionally understood. A much better explanation for voter discontent, as I told The Free Press, is the interaction of three factors that have formed a potent political umbrella cause: ongoing shock at higher sticker prices of groceries, energy and more after the recent inflation; annoyance at a chunk of wage gains seem to get eaten up by increasing housing and healthcare costs each year; and the squeeze of Trump’s tariffs on certain households and businesses.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of voters’ disillusionment, however, so politicians are looking for answers. What can be done that would actually make economic sense, given politicians will do something anyway?

On macroeconomic policy, sensibly, no policymaker wants to crash the economy to get outright deflation and a lower price level (even though that’s what voters say they want). That cure would be worse than the disease. Raising the economy’s sustainable growth rate to dissipate price growth is likewise very hard.

So, in reality, that leaves microeconomic tinkering with individual product markets. Progressives have simple but wrong solutions here. They want to control prices like rents, bus fares, and wages, dish-out subsidies for healthcare and childcare, and empower government to squash mythical monopolies. That’s all a recipe for shortages, black markets, misallocation, inefficient business practices and the offloading of some high prices from customers to other taxpayers.

Is there a better way that would actually deliver lower market prices? To my mind, a libertarian would look at what government regulations or policies inflate the cost of production for important goods and services and seek to eradicate these supply barriers. So, that’s the approach I take at Reason. I present 17 policy ideas for federal, state and local governments spanning markets for food, healthcare, appliances, housing, energy, and transport.

Below is a fuller list that adds additional categories and adds extra policies within some categories too. To be clear: I’m not sure many of these would have large enough price impacts quickly enough to really ameliorate voters’ anger today. But they are worth doing anyway, and what better time than when you’re responding to annoyance at high prices!

This my starter list. What else should be added?

A Libertarian Affordability Agenda

Food

  • Remove tariffs on food
  • Eliminate the sugar program
  • Eliminate dairy price supports
  • Remove laws that protect beer/​wine/​spirits wholesalers from competition
  • Repeal ethanol mandates
  • Liberalize more street vending
  • Remove baby formula protectionism
  • Broaden work visas for agriculture/​end the deportations

Healthcare

  • License recognition across state lines (simple disclosure) and deregulate telehealth
  • Abolish certificate of need boards
  • Make birth control, GLPs over the counter
  • Unilateral recognition of drug approval with Canada/​Europe/​Japan/​Australia
  • Expand scope-of-practice for nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and clinical psychologists
  • Remove tariffs on healthcare inputs
  • Allow easier immigration of doctors, nurses and other practitioners, with recognition of foreign licenses

Household appliances and services

  • Repeal tariffs on household appliances and inputs
  • Reform appliance efficiency standards
  • Remove licensing for HVAC, relax for plumbing
  • Occupational licensing abolition for home repair

Housing

  • Release land in the West for development and relax urban growth boundaries
  • Zoning reform
  • Relax density requirements, parking mandates, staircase rules
  • Faster Permitting and “by right” building
  • Remove tariffs on core inputs and materials for houses

Energy

  • Repeal the arguably unlawful GHG regulations on power plants
  • Approve more pipes and make the approvals process faster and easier
  • Remove tariffs on poles, wires, and other transmission equipment, steel and copper
  • Open federal lands for energy development
  • Permitting reform
  • Jones Act repeal

Transport

  • Repeal the Jones Act (again)
  • Repeal all cabotage laws (including airlines and trucking)
  • Remove union stranglehold on US ports
  • Remove the “chicken tax” and all other tariffs on imports of autos/​auto parts/​vehicles
  • End Buy American laws that drive up the cost of building infrastructure and procuring buses/​rolling stock for mass transit systems
  • Eliminate Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards
  • Eliminate EV mandates
  • Repeal bans on direct-to-consumer sales and other anticompetitive car dealership laws
  • Repeal taxi monopoly laws and permit driverless taxis
  • Repeal Davis-Bacon

Clothing and Personal Care

  • Eliminate all clothing and footwear tariffs
  • Eliminate textile import quotas
  • Land-use planning reform to allow higher retail productivity

Childcare and Childrearing

  • Relax staff-child ratios, maximum group sizes, and educational requirements for childcare staff
  • Reduce burden of facility requirements
  • Have states preempt excessively tight zoning restrictions on home-based daycares
  • Expand the au pair program and relax restrictions on where au pairs can live
  • Reduce immigration restrictions for childcare and household services
  • Relax car seat laws that fail to pass a cost-benefit test