How's it going, America,
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Let’s get into it:
There’s been a distinct generational divide on the whole affordability question. Millennials have been voicing concerns for years about how hard it is to create a proper adult lifestyle these days in the United States, only to be told to stop spending money on avocado toast and lattes, and now Gen Z hears a similar refrain when they complain about the cost of food, gas, and housing. Instead of dismissive missives about $7 toast with a schmear of green fruit, they’re told to make their burritos at home.
So what’s the real deal? As usual (she says from her perch above it all, where Gen X usually sits looking over their glasses and down upon everyone), the truth is that the kids are right and the elderly boomers are using their own experiences of coming up as the metric for how things should be without acknowledging how things really are. Anyone with a car can tell you that they’re being squeezed. Costs have gone up, a grocery store steak for two can run $45. Sure, that’s for the organic free-range grass-fed grass-finished antibiotic-free beef, but back in the 70s that’s what was in the butcher case, it wasn’t a specialty item like it is today.
Eating out is more expensive and ordering in brings with it a host of extra fees from third-party companies that gig out workers who are nominally paid and have no loyalty or buy-in either to the delivery app, the restaurant, or the customer. In other words, we’re paying more for our food to show up cold, not at all, or chucked at our front steps where it sits until we get a ping from the app that it’s been delivered. Problems? That’s your problem.
Housing. We know this is an issue. Many of us grew up in homes our parents owned and then found that we weren’t able to buy homes of our own until deep into our 40s. I was 47 when I bought my first home, and I think, barring potential inheritance, it will likely be my last. The very prospect of cobbling together down payment money while renting, living on salaries that do not increase with the cost of living and costs keep rising while paying off student loans is daunting. Not to say it can’t be done, but it takes way more than giving up avocado toast and burritos to make it happen.
All of our elected leaders are clamoring to find answers that also boost their own power positions and, let’s be honest, line their own pockets. Inez Stepman of the Independent Women’s Forum put together “a starter list on affordability,” and I’m sharing it because I think these ideas make lots of sense:
“Forgive a portion of student loan debt by taxing university endowments, and substantially limit the use of government-backed loans going forward.
“School choice checks to help families escape the double burden of paying for terrible schools they cannot use
“Move towards transparency in health care costs and encourage the growing non-insurance medical services industry. Insurance is broken.
“Stop admissions and workplace discrimination. There are a hell of a lot of Americans not being paid the merit-based wage they deserve.
“Realign existing welfare programs so that they don’t arbitrarily punish traditional families and marriage.
“Repeal or lower state gas taxes”
Universities that let students pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for degrees they cannot use to secure employment sold those kids a dream and should be held accountable. Instead of taxpayers paying off the student loans that now cripple their finances, the schools that delivered the false promises should pay from their own endowments. Perhaps this will have a side-effect of teaching them not to sell bad educations.
I’m a public school advocate but school choice would provide more competition and public schools would have to rise to the challenge and offer better educations at a better taxpayer cost. No more random extra math apps and programs that don’t do anything but provide busy work and cause our kids to become disengaged. Also, private schools would, ideally, spring up to offer educations that appeal to families, such as classical or Catholic schools.
Health insurance is broken. Care gets worse as costs go up. Installing government as the only vendor, as the socialists want to do, will only make it worse.
American jobs for American workers first. This should be obvious. And provide social programs that help and bolster families, the building blocks of society and democracy, instead of driving them apart.
We’ve made a nation reliant on personal transportation. Gas is not a luxury, it’s a means of traversing our lives and responsibilities. Gas taxes that take an already pricey gallon of gas and make it painful or out of reach for drivers should be removed.
The Dems are the ones who talked about affordability, and they won on that as voters wanted to smack Trump for the war and, yes, gas prices. But the ability to identify a problem does not mean you have the solution. There is an affordability problem, but the solution is in more free market driven ideas, not socialist ones.
Libby