Please join us for Cato on Tour: Austin on Thursday, October 8, 2026, from 5:30 to 7:15 p.m. CDT at the Headliners Club.

Affordability has become the defining political issue of 2026, but the term means different things to different people—sticker shock from years of high inflation, the squeeze of expensive credit, and structural price pressures in markets including housing and health care. The Cato Institute’s new Handbook on Affordability, spearheaded by R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics Ryan Bourne with contributions from scholars across the Institute, cuts through the confusion. The handbook shows how individual liberty, free markets, and sound money can deliver, as Adam Smith put it 250 years ago, “universal abundance.”

Rents are up at least 30 percent, and home prices are up more than 50 percent since 2020. The median home now costs five times median household income, up from 3.5 times in the 1990s. Why? Bad policy. Senior Fellow Stephen Slivinski will break down how zoning reform and the elimination of various government regulations, mandates, and inefficiencies could bring housing costs back to earth.

US health care is the most expensive in the world. Per capita health spending is more than twice the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average. Health spending consumes 18.5 percent of national income versus the OECD’s 9.3 percent. Director of Health Policy Studies Michael F. Cannon will show how government regulations prevent markets from making health care better and more affordable. Regulation blocks lower-price health services, affordable medicines available in other countries, and innovations that enable consumers to access medicines safely without needing a doctor’s prescription.

Hear the ideas that would fix what’s broken from the people driving the debate. Join Austin’s liberty-minded community to be part of the conversation.

For more information, please contact Serena Home at (202) 218‑4602 or shome@​cato.​org.