Democrats have discovered a wonderful new word for the 2026 elections coming to primetime.
Affordability.
Healthcare needs to be more affordable.
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Housing needs to be more affordable.
Childcare needs to be more affordable.
Energy needs to be more affordable.
Groceries need to be more affordable.
Who could possibly disagree?
Certainly not me.
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But as a financial advisor, I have one question whenever somebody tells me they’re making something more affordable.
Did you actually lower the cost, or did you just find somebody else to pay the bill?
Because those are two very different things.
Democrats have made affordability a centerpiece of their 2026 economic message.
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Among the ideas being discussed by progressive Democrats are $1 trillion toward new housing supply, government-produced prescription drugs, federal utility-rate standards and limits on what families pay for childcare.
Other Democrats are pushing expanded healthcare subsidies and additional government assistance for families.
Some proposals could attack legitimate underlying problems. Cutting zoning and permitting restrictions to build more housing, for example, could actually increase supply.
I’m all for finding ways to make America build again.
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But too much of the affordability conversation still follows an old formula.
Something costs too much. Have government pay more of it.
We’ve seen this movie before.
We used to call it tax and spend.
Now we call it affordability.
Imagine your health insurance costs $20,000 a year.
Government gives you an $8,000 subsidy.
Your personal bill falls to $12,000.
Fantastic.
But healthcare didn’t suddenly cost $12,000.
It still cost $20,000.
We simply changed who wrote part of the check.
The same principle applies to childcare subsidies, housing assistance and countless tax credits.
Government money isn’t created by a magical ATM underneath the Capitol.
It ultimately comes from taxes, borrowing or shifting resources from somewhere else.
This would bother me less if the federal government were swimming in excess cash.
It isn’t.
The United States continues running enormous annual deficits while carrying a federal debt measured in the tens of trillions of dollars.
Imagine a family earning $100,000 annually but spending $130,000.
They’re already buried in debt.
Then Dad walks into the kitchen and announces:
“Great news. I just made groceries more affordable.”
How?
He put them on another credit card.
Nobody would call that an affordability plan.
They’d call Ted Jenkin for a financial reality check.
Yet Democrats, and frankly, Republicans, when it suits them, regularly embrace government benefits without spending nearly enough time discussing the ultimate bill.
Here’s the affordability agenda I’d rather hear debated.
Why does America have a housing shortage?
Why does it take so long and cost so much to build?
Why are healthcare prices nearly impossible for consumers to understand?
Why aren’t there enough doctors, nurses and childcare providers?
Why can’t we produce and transmit more energy faster?
Those are cost questions.
And solving them means attacking supply, competition, regulation and productivity and not merely subsidizing demand.
If we have 100 families fighting over 80 houses, giving everybody a bigger government check doesn’t magically create another 20 houses.
Democrats say their affordability agenda would lower costs for working families, and some of their proposals deserve a legitimate debate.
But Americans should apply one simple test to every promise:
Did you make it cheaper, or did you make somebody else pay for it?
Because I suspect we’re entering another era when government spending will increasingly be sold as the solution to the cost of living.
The terminology has changed.
The sales pitch is better. The algorithms repeat the message.
But Americans have seen this movie before. At least I have.
Tax. Spend. Subsidize. Repeat.
Just don’t call it that anymore. Call it affordability.
Your wallet won’t know the difference.
