Affordability Requires Supply, Not Price Controls

GINGRICH 360

One year into President Donald J. Trump’s second term, significant progress has been made on affordability.

Gasoline prices are at historic lows, interest rates and housing costs are declining, and many grocery prices have stabilized—or begun to fall. Inflation has dropped to 2.7 percent over the past year from a peak of 9 percent under the Biden administration. At the same time, real wages have grown by 4 percent. In 2025, Americans experienced the first overall price decline since 2020.

Still, many families continue to feel squeezed. This pressure reflects the lasting damage of the Biden administration’s demand-side policies of stimulus, wealth transfers, and massive government spending—along with long-term affordability challenges driven by decades of bad policies.

With the 2026 midterms approaching, there is an understandable desire on Capitol Hill to “do something.” But lawmakers should resist the temptation to reach for easy answers such as government-imposed price controls. Price controls are not market reforms. They are administrative attempts to override prices rather than address the conditions that make goods and services unaffordable in the first place. History shows that when government tries to control prices instead of expanding supply, the results are predictable—and damaging.

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