A conservative policy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence is pushing a 10-point plan to drive down costs for American families, arguing that government regulation, not private enterprise, is the root cause of the affordability squeeze.
Advancing American Freedom released a report titled 10 Ways to Improve Affordability Now Across 10 Levels of the Economy, laying out proposals that range from slashing housing regulations and expanding domestic energy production to overhauling Social Security and SNAP eligibility rules. The report calls affordability the "No. 1 issue facing the American people" and puts the blame squarely on Washington.
Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at AAF, told Fox News Digital that the message is straightforward: government created the problem, and rolling back government overreach is the fix.
"Yes, there's an unaffordability crisis, and it's the government's fault."
That line frames the entire document. Where progressives often point fingers at corporations, landlords, and energy companies, the AAF report argues the opposite, that red tape, restrictive zoning, and federal spending distortions are what stand between Americans and lower prices.
The report devotes significant attention to housing, one of the largest monthly costs for most families. It proposes limiting local zoning restrictions that block new construction and tying roughly $50 billion in annual federal housing aid to zoning reform. The logic is blunt: if a city wants federal dollars, it should stop making it nearly impossible to build.
Data from the National Association of Home Builders backs the urgency. The trade group estimates that government regulations account for about 26% of the price of a new single-family home. For a buyer looking at a $400,000 house, that means roughly $104,000 of the sticker price traces back to permits, codes, impact fees, and regulatory compliance, not lumber, labor, or land.
The report also calls for streamlining approval processes for projects that already meet existing rules. Builders who check every box should not wait months or years for a bureaucratic green light that adds cost at every stage.
Energy sits at the center of the AAF plan. The report calls for more oil and gas leasing on federal land and rejects state-level fracking bans, treating cheap energy as the single most powerful lever for lowering costs across the board.
Stern argued that greater domestic energy production could reduce prices throughout the economy because energy touches "every good we move, every service provided." Groceries, manufacturing, shipping, heating, all of it runs on energy. When regulators restrict supply, the cost cascades into everything a family buys.
That argument carries particular weight at a moment when electricity demand is surging thanks to data centers, AI infrastructure, and reshored manufacturing. Constraining supply while demand climbs is a recipe for exactly the kind of price pressure American households are already feeling.
One of the more politically charged proposals in the report involves tariffs. AAF recommends shifting more tariff authority back to Congress, a position that puts the group at odds with the broad executive discretion President Trump has used to impose sweeping trade levies.
The numbers tell the story. Treasury data show that tariff duties in January totaled $30.4 billion, up approximately 242% from $8.9 billion a year earlier. The report argues that Trump's sweeping tariffs have raised prices, strained U.S. alliances, and resulted in nearly 900,000 fewer jobs than expected.
Trump has defended tariffs as a tool to protect American industries and boost domestic production. That case has supporters, and the administration points to reshoring gains and leverage in trade negotiations. The AAF report does not dismiss those goals but contends the cost to consumers has grown too steep and that Congress, not the executive branch alone, should set the boundaries.
For a conservative group founded by Trump's own former vice president, the recommendation is notable. It reflects a real policy debate on the right about where protectionism ends and consumer harm begins.
Beyond housing, energy, and trade, the report calls for overhauling Social Security and SNAP eligibility. The specific changes are not detailed in the available reporting, but the thrust is consistent with the broader argument: federal entitlement programs carry structural inefficiencies that drive up costs for taxpayers and distort markets.
The report also addresses credit card interest rates, though the precise recommendations and how they differ from the administration's own proposals remain unclear.
Stern framed the stakes in terms that go beyond grocery bills and mortgage payments. He warned that economic frustration can turn Americans against one another, toward "viewing each other as the enemy, and that's what socialism is." The affordability crisis, in his telling, is not just a pocketbook problem. It is a threat to the social compact that holds a free-market society together.
"I hope that people can take away from this that it's not businesses that are the problem. It's not entrepreneurs. It's not other Americans. It's government."
That distinction matters. When prices climb, the instinct in Washington is often to blame the private sector, to haul CEOs before committees, float price controls, or propose new layers of regulation. The AAF report pushes back on every count, insisting that the government interventions meant to help are the very policies making life more expensive.
Taken together, the 10 proposals share a common architecture. Cut zoning barriers. Expand energy supply. Streamline approvals. Tie federal money to reform. Shift tariff power to the branch closest to voters. Overhaul entitlement eligibility. Each one targets a point where federal or local government has inserted itself between producers and consumers and driven the price up.
Whether Congress acts on any of it is another question. Zoning reform means picking a fight with local governments. Tariff reform means challenging executive authority the current administration has used aggressively. Entitlement overhauls mean touching programs that politicians in both parties treat as untouchable.
None of that changes the underlying math. When regulations account for a quarter of a home's price, when energy policy restricts supply in the face of rising demand, and when tariff revenue triples in a single year, the cost lands on the same people every time, families trying to make a paycheck stretch to the end of the month.
Washington created the affordability crisis. The least it can do is stop pretending someone else is to blame.
