By John F. Di Leo, Opinion Contributor
Many Democrats are running this year on a vague but powerful issue: “Affordability.”
Some Republican pundits deny that affordability is anything new, because life on earth has always been hard, and it still is. But it sounds rather unsympathetic to say, and the fact is, some aspects are indeed very definitely worse now, by design.
Democrat candidates, on the other hand, can appear empathetic, by claiming that it’s hard to make it in life today, with all the fundamental costs of living going up, up, up, so we should vote for Democrats because, well, Democrats seem to care about the issue.
Both sides have a point. On the one hand, life has always been hard, and on the other things, some things are worse today.
What Republicans need to remember is that, while the economy is indeed doing well in some ways (stock market up, red states booming), life is also indeed harder in other ways (the continued effects of Bidenflation, blue states struggling). So, in a national election, we need to look at the big picture and address it with specificity.
And that’s what the Democrats don’t want, under any circumstance. Because when you look at specific issues and locations, you see that the solutions can’t come from Democrats because – unfortunately but undeniably – the problems are virtually all rooted in Democrat policies.
What makes up the affordability issue?
Inflation:
This is real. The dollar buys less, in general, than it did before. On the one hand, this is nothing new, since there is almost always some limited inflation; it had been hovering around two to three percent per year for forty years, but on the other hand, it was definitely much worse for four years, irreparably worse, because the Biden-Harris regime intentionally (yes, they did it on purpose) massively expanded the money supply, creating significant inflation by stimulus after stimulus, devaluing of the Dollar, and generally uncontrolled government borrowing.
The Trump administration has succeeded in bringing down that crippling annual inflation level quickly – without a recession – which is a real accomplishment, but we can never bring average prices back down to where they were before the huge inflation of the Biden years without a depression.
So what’s the verdict on Inflation?
Cause? Democrats.
Solution? Republicans.
Housing Costs:
It’s true. Housing costs have gone up. For renters, the cost of renting from someone else is up, and for homeowners, the cost of buying, building, or remodeling homes is up as well. So yes, housing costs are up. But again, we ask, why are costs up? Who’s responsible, and who can be trusted to fix it?
Well, for starters, all pricing is an effect of supply and demand. The Democrats have brought in at least 30 million illegal aliens who need someplace to live, and many blue cities and states are paying for their housing with tax dollars (which raises everyone else’s taxes too). With this avalanche of new occupants, housing prices have had to go up.
Since Covid, too many states have crippled their landlords, refusing to allow or enforce standard policies of eviction of tenants for nonpayment or for trashing the places. This has terrifically raised the landlords’ costs, requiring that rent levels go up to absorb it. Your higher rent is directly caused by your neighbor’s nonpayment and destruction of the property.
Property taxes are skyrocketing, especially in blue states. This increases the cost of housing to both homeowners and renters; the difference here is that homeowners know this because they write the checks to the assessor, while renters often don’t realize that their landlord’s skyrocketing property taxes have to be built into their rent.
Inflation has affected building materials, especially raw materials like copper pipe and steel electrical wiring, and Biden-era climate-hoax overregulation practically doubled the cost of appliances; all this has driven up the cost of both building new and remodeling old.
On issue after issue, Democrat policies caused housing prices to explode, from the influx of illegal aliens to the cost of building materials, from outrageous property taxes to artificially overpriced furnaces, water heaters, ovens and clothes dryers. The Republicans are tackling all these issues, one by one, by repealing unconstitutional regulations, deporting criminal illegals, securing the border, and more – but Democrat control of such policies in blue states and blue cities slows and sometimes counters these efforts.
So, what’s the clear verdict on Housing Costs?
Cause? Democrats.
Solution? Republicans.
Gasoline and Diesel Prices:
This issue is real, though it’s one of the more complex ones to study. Fuel prices are both a driver and a consequence of inflation, because fuel drives so much of our activity, from personal transportation to the commercial transportation of the goods we make, sell, and buy. And these prices are always in front of our eyes, since we physically watch the numbers on the pump every time we fill our tanks.
With inflation adjustment, surprisingly, gasoline and diesel prices are high, but they are not actually near their all-time peak. Still, their cost does affect our broader cost of living, so it’s worth considering the reasons for it.
The USA could be the world’s largest producer of both sides of the issue: both the crude oil that comes out of the ground and its usable refined products like gasoline and diesel.
But Democrats have long had a policy (look it up!) of intentionally driving up the prices of both, in their deranged pursuit of a world without what they call “fossil fuels.” They hope that by driving up the price, they will get both individuals and trucks to stop driving at all, and just stay put. An utterly illogical plan, but built into their party platform for a generation now.
So every time the Democrats get into the White House, they make it harder to drill, harder to transport, harder to refine, harder to store, harder to use, any of these products. They have shut down (or more often, drastically slow-walked the permitting for) exploration and pumping. They have shut down pipeline construction. They have instituted higher and high gasoline taxes both at and before the pump. And worst of all, they have overregulated the refining industry to death.
Over the past 35 years, due to federal and state overregulation of that critical industry, we have seen 90 refineries permanently shut down in the United States, costing us over 3.5 billion barrels per day in crude distillation capacity. Yes, you read that right. 3.5 billion barrels per day.
Other refineries have expanded over these years, in friendlier states, in an attempt to keep up with our needs, but imagine how much more refining we could have (and how much money could be saved, and how many good jobs would be created) if only those 90 refineries had not been forced to close by Democrat policies?
California, for example, imports most of its gasoline from Japan and other foreign countries, because of the state’s mad hostility to the refining business. No wonder they have the highest gasoline and diesel prices in the country, and the most miserably unaffordable cost of living in general.
The Trump administration, along with sane governance in red states, is trying its best to straighten out these policies and open the gates on fuel production, but again, Democrat holdouts and blue state governments stand in the way wherever they can.
So, what’s the verdict on gas and diesel?
Cause? Democrats.
Solution? Republicans.
In Conclusion:
We could look at plenty of other issues. So much goes into the general concept of affordability, from food to employment to transportation to entertainment. But this brief look at some of the biggest issues should provide some direction. On issue after issue, the drivers are the same.
Is affordability an issue? Yes indeed. The cost of living is unacceptably high, in sector after sector and region after region. And while some areas, primarily red, are booming, many other areas, primarily blue, are not.
But the idea that this is an issue that supports Democrat candidates in this midterm election is simply illogical.
We may try all we want to be unbiased and nonpartisan, but a careful study of both party platforms and specific bills and regulations confirms that, on practically every issue under the sun, Democrats cause the problems, and Republicans have to get into office to solve them.
So if we want to improve affordability – and frankly, everything else – we need to vote Republican, for every office from the county and state legislatures to the Congress and Senate.
A Republican wave in this midterm is the only way to solve our nation’s economic problems.
Copyright 2026 John F. Di Leo
