Now that the government shutdown is over (did anyone even notice the government was shut down?), the latest political debate turns around the issue of “affordability.” Since losing the 2024 elections, Democrats have been searching desperately for an issue to run on other than “I hate Trump.” In affordability, they may have finally found that issue. And they have found it just in time for the 2026 mid-term elections.

Affordability is a great issue because it incorporates so many other issues in a single word. Health care costs? Check. Food prices? Check. Housing costs? Check. And so on. Everyone spends money to live and support their families. If the cost of so many everyday items seem out of reach, there’s an affordability crisis. And that plays right into Democrats’ hands.

The Democrats are claiming that Americans, especially younger Americans, cannot afford housing, food, and other basics. Tuition and healthcare are too expensive. Most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot save anything. Safe housing in large cities is completely out of reach. The claim of an affordability crisis is a shortcut phrase for all of the above.

Trump and the White House staff reply that affordability is getting better. The price of gasoline is down, interest rates are falling, and job opportunities are opening up because of all the foreign investment in the U.S. and other new investments by U.S. companies. This has happened at Trump’s urging or through his use of tariffs as leverage.

Who’s right?

Both sides have some points in their favor, but the Democrats are winning the political argument… and they know it. The reason is that declining inflation is not the same as declining prices.

Biden produced the highest inflation in over 40 years. Inflation hit 9.1% (year-over-year) in June 2022. Inflation has come down since then, although Trump has been on a losing streak lately. Inflation was 2.3% last April and is 3.0% today. That’s not as bad as Biden, but shoppers still notice. Regular gas prices are down from where they were in 2022, but they’re about the same now as they were a year ago.

Trump seems to understand he’s vulnerable on the affordability issue. He has taken up the issue himself and has launched a full-scale effort to show he’s the one making life in the U.S. more affordable. Trump reduced tariffs on coffee, bananas, beef, and 200 other food products to lower costs to consumers. Trump also gave a keynote address at a conference hosted by McDonald's for its franchisees.

This recalled Trump’s highly successful 2024 campaign stop, where he put on a McDonald's apron, cooked fries, and worked the drive-through window. Trump praised McDonald's ability to keep prices low for consumers. That’s true but even low prices are higher than they were and this comes at a time when incomes are stagnant. That’s the problem Trump can’t get around.

These are not bad moves on Trump’s part but they are trivial compared to the scope of the problem. Since the Democrats are mostly out of power, they don’t have to do anything constructive. All they have to do is complain. And they are complaining very effectively.

Medicare Plan B coverage premiums are going up 9.7% in 2026. That’s more than three times the headline 3.0% inflation in the CPI. Most consumers cannot name more than a few of the 100 plus items in the CPI basket for calculation purposes. But 100% of citizens over the age of 65 can tell you what they’re paying in Medicare premiums. They can also tell you they can’t afford a near 10% price increase on what for them is a necessity.

Republicans are touting the fact that inflation has fallen from 9.1% under Biden to just 3.0% under Trump. But even 3.0% inflation will cut the value of the dollar in half in 24 years and half again in another 24 years. That’s a 75% devaluation over the course of a 48-year career starting at age 17 and retiring at age 65.

Here’s why Democrats are winning this debate. It’s true that Biden is to blame for the inflation. But Biden is off the stage and no one cares. Trump’s inflation is better than Biden’s but it’s still inflation. In other words, prices are going up at a slower pace but they’re still going up.

And they’re going up off the much higher base created by Biden. Those price increases from 2022 and 2023 have not gone away. They’re embedded in today’s prices along with any new increases. That’s what makes things unaffordable today, and that’s why Trump is being blamed.

The solution is more high-paying jobs, but that takes time. Trump’s investment wave will play out over three to five years, but the mid-term elections are less than a year away. Trump may complain, but he still gets the political blame.

Noted commentator and globalist progressive Fareed Zakaria offered a rebuttal to Democrats and put the blame where it belongs to defend Trump:

“If America has an affordability crisis, it tends to be in places Democrats govern, like New York, Illinois, and California, all featuring high taxes, soaring housing costs, and stagnant outcomes. It is a paradox that defines much of blue-state America: government that promises more, costs more, but delivers less. Democrats’ instinctive response to every problem remains the same: spend more.

For decades, states and cities have traded short-term political harmony for long-term fiscal ruin. In too many Democratic strongholds, regulation has metastasized into paralysis. Housing is unaffordable because local zoning codes and environmental reviews, rent control and union carve-outs make construction painfully slow and expensive. California has spent $24 billion on homelessness over five years, yet the problem has only worsened. More is spent per mile on subway construction in New York than any other city on earth.

Each new initiative layers another bureaucracy atop the last. Democrats must rediscover the lost art of simple competence—and they can prove it to the entire nation by governing well in places like big cities where they are in charge.”

Zakaria’s analysis is exactly right, but it’s also irrelevant. Everyday Americans don’t need a lecture on whose fault it is. They can’t pay their bills and their incomes are stagnant. They want relief now, and Trump is in charge, so they expect Trump to deliver some solutions. Everything else is tuned out as pure politics.

If Trump wants the high ground on the affordability issue, he needs to do several things immediately. The first is simple education. Explain to voters where the inflation came from. Biden’s American Rescue Plan of 2021 spent over $1 trillion on pandemic relief at a time when the economy had already recovered and stocks were at new all-time highs. Pelosi’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 spent another almost $1 trillion on the Green New Scam. The two acts together were the main drivers of inflation in 2021-2022. Inflation has been reduced since then but, again, prices are still not coming down.

The second thing Trump can do is drill, baby, drill. This program should include oil and natural gas and opening up drilling on federal lands, off the East and West Coasts and in Alaska and the Gulf of America. Energy demand is dropping. There’s no “oil glut” there’s a collapse of demand. Flooding the market with even more energy could push the price of oil to $40 per barrel or lower. The losers will be Arab and other foreign energy producers and the winners will be American consumers and Trump politically. Americans are more aware of the price of gas at the pump than any other single price metric.

As an aside, there’s no faster way to end the war in Ukraine than $40 oil. That will impact Russia and Putin more that the endless rounds of sanctions that Biden, Trump and the EU have imposed.

A third policy is to complete the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and unleash them to support mortgage finance coming from bank and non-bank mortgage originations. This competition and added liquidity will lower mortgage interest rates faster than yelling at Jay Powell and the Fed night and day.

The Democrats are winning the affordability debate. Trump can win in the end but only if he stops whining and enacts solid policies on energy and mortgages. The mid-terms on only eleven months away. Congress will close up shop in eight months. Time is short.