​Some conservatives are sounding more like the left on economics.

Tariffs. Industrial policy. Government-directed investment. Picking winners and losers. These policies are increasingly being promoted as solutions to America's affordability challenges, but do they actually help families prosper?

In Episode 201 of the Let People Prosper Show, I sit down with Marc Short, Chairman of Advancing American Freedom, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and one of the key architects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

We discuss the future of conservative economics, why affordability has become the defining political issue, the legacy of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and whether tariffs and industrial policy help or hurt economic growth and opportunity.

In This Episode:

✅ The future of conservative economics
✅ The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and its legacy
✅ Why affordability matters politically
✅ Tariffs and trade policy
✅ Economic growth and worker prosperity
✅ The New Right versus free-market economics

If you enjoyed this conversation, please like, subscribe, and share it with others.

🌐 Learn more: vanceginn.com

📩 Subscribe: vanceginn.substack.com

Originally published on Substack.

​Washington is breaking the legs of America’s farmers, handing them taxpayer-funded crutches, and calling it help.

The latest example is the political paradox highlighted by The Economist: President Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are hitting farmers with higher input costs and weaker export markets, yet many farmers still back him.

But the deeper story is not one politician or one party. It is the failure of government central planning—whether it comes dressed as “industrial policy,” “fair trade,” “emergency aid,” or “affordability relief.”

Farmers do not need more political micromanagement. They need open markets, sound money, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a government that stops making production more expensive.

Tariffs Are Taxes on Farmers

Tariffs are not paid by foreign governments. They are taxes paid by Americans through higher prices, disrupted supply chains, and fewer choices.

That matters for agriculture because farmers are not just sellers. They are buyers of fuel, fertilizer, seed, machinery, chemicals, parts, irrigation systems, trucks, steel, aluminum, and borrowed capital. When Washington taxes imports, it raises the cost of farming.

A recent Farm Progress analysis found that agriculture-related tariffs collected hundreds of millions of dollars from farm machinery, agricultural chemicals, fertilizers, and seeds. That may look like “revenue” to Washington, but to producers it is just another cost layered on top of already tight margins.

This is the first government punch: Washington raises costs.

Then comes the second punch: foreign retaliation against American exports. China, the European Union, and other trade partners do not sit still when the U.S. imposes tariffs. They respond. And when they do, American farmers lose access, lose market share, or take lower prices.

That is not a trade strategy. It is political gambling with other people’s livelihoods.

Lost Markets Don’t Snap Back

The most dangerous myth in trade policy is that export markets can be turned off and on like a light switch.

They cannot.

Once a buyer in China, Europe, or elsewhere shifts supply chains to Brazil, Argentina, Canada, or another competitor, that business does not automatically return when politicians announce a deal. Relationships matter. Logistics matter. Contracts matter. Reliability matters.

Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture noted that even China’s reported soybean purchase commitments would still leave U.S. soybean exports to China below recent levels. Its later export review also showed how quickly markets can restructure, with China’s share of U.S. soybean exports falling sharply while other markets picked up some of the slack—but not enough to erase the damage from policy-driven uncertainty.

This is exactly what Friedrich Hayek warned about in the knowledge problem. No president, trade adviser, or federal agency can know the millions of localized decisions made by farmers, suppliers, processors, shippers, lenders, and foreign customers.

The people closest to the risk have the most knowledge. Washington has the most power. That mismatch creates disaster.

Subsidies Hide the Damage

After Washington raises costs and disrupts export markets, it offers aid.

The USDA announced a $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance package in December 2025, including up to $11 billion for row crop producers. USDA said the money was intended to help farmers facing market disruptions, elevated input costs, persistent inflation, and market losses.

That admission is revealing. Washington is acknowledging the problem while refusing to stop causing it.
The USDA now forecasts direct government farm payments of $44.3 billion in 2026, up 45.2% from 2025. The American Farm Bureau Federation similarly noted that rising government payments are shoring up farm income as weakness persists into 2026.

That is not a healthy farm economy. That is a politically managed farm economy.

And politically managed economies create dependency. Once the government damages the market, people understandably ask the government for relief. Then the relief becomes part of the business model. Then lawmakers call that “support.” But it is not support. It is dependency created by bad policy.
Farmers should not have to lobby Washington for compensation after Washington makes it harder to farm.

The Fed Is Part of the Affordability Crisis

Tariffs are the visible tax. Inflation is the invisible tax. Farmers and families are paying both.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold the federal funds rate steady at its April 29–30 meeting, with the current target range at 3.5% to 3.75%. But inflation is still well above the Fed’s 2% target. The latest CPI report shows prices up 3.3% over the year in March, while core PCE inflation was 3.0% in February. That is not price stability.

The Fed’s balance sheet also remains bloated, with assets near $6.7 trillion, far above its pre-2008 footprint relative to the economy. That excess matters because easy money and excessive federal spending helped create the inflationary environment now crushing families and producers.

I know higher interest rates are not painless. Farmers borrow to finance land, equipment, operating costs, and seasonal production. Higher rates raise financing costs in the short run.

But persistent inflation is worse.

Inflation raises the cost of fertilizer, fuel, diesel, machinery, insurance, labor, land, repairs, and groceries. It erodes savings. It distorts investment. It punishes working families. It makes long-term planning harder for the very producers Washington claims to support.

The Fed should not be cutting rates or pretending inflation is beaten. It should follow a clear rule: get inflation back to 2% quickly, keep rates high enough to restore purchasing power, and shrink the balance sheet toward its pre-2008 norm as a share of GDP. Sound money is not optional. It is the foundation of affordability.

The Populist Trap

Many farmers support Trump because they believe he is fighting for them. I understand that instinct. Rural America has been ignored, lectured, and regulated by people who often know little about agriculture and even less about markets.

But feeling seen is not the same as being helped.

Tariffs may sound tough. Bailouts may feel supportive. Easy money may feel like relief. But together they create a toxic mix: higher production costs, weaker export markets, inflationary pressure, more subsidies, and more dependency.

That is not free enterprise. It is central planning with patriotic branding.

And it is not limited government. It is government creating a problem, expanding itself to manage the problem, and then demanding credit for the partial relief.

Real Support Means Less Government

The best farm policy is not a bigger check from Washington. It is a smaller burden from Washington.

That means ending tariffs and retaliatory trade wars. It means removing barriers on fertilizer, machinery, chemicals, energy, transportation, and capital investment. It means cutting excessive regulations. It means restraining federal spending. It means shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet. It means restoring sound money. It means letting farmers sell to willing buyers around the world without turning them into pawns in political negotiations.

The North Star should be simple: free farmers to produce, trade, invest, and compete.

American farmers are some of the most productive people on earth. They feed families here and abroad. They take risks most politicians would never understand. They do not need Washington to “save” them from markets.

They need Washington to stop sabotaging markets.

Three Takeaways for Policymakers

1. Tariffs are taxes. They raise costs for farmers, families, and businesses while inviting retaliation against American exports.
2. Subsidies do not fix bad policy. They often hide the damage long enough for dependency to deepen.
3. Affordability requires sound money. The Fed should stop pretending inflation is beaten, shrink its balance sheet, and follow rules-based policy to restore purchasing power.

Originally published on Substack.

Some in Washington have suddenly discovered affordability while the Trump administration continues to blame Biden or say people “feel” okay.

Americans are right to be upset.
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As the new Cato Institute affordability handbook (authored by Cato scholars, such as Ryan Bourne, Romina Boccia, Norbert Michel, Scott Lincicome, Travis Fisher, Colin Grabow, and others) notes, by early 2026 consumer prices were still about 24 percent higher than five years earlier, while borrowing costs on mortgages, car loans, and credit cards had also jumped.

Families do not experience the economy through press releases. They experience it through rent, groceries, insurance, health care, child care, and monthly payments that still do not fit comfortably inside a paycheck.
But here is the problem Washington keeps refusing to face: most of the political class wants to solve affordability with the same tools that made it worse.
Cap prices. Punish profits. Expand subsidies. Add mandates. Restrict trade. Pick winners. Manage outcomes.
That is not a cure. It is just more politics in place of markets.
As I argued in Affordability Is the Test—and Washington Keeps Failing It, families do not care whether economists say inflation has cooled if the cost of everyday life is still elevated. Affordability is the issue because it decides whether households can actually live, save, build, and plan. The answer is not more management from above. It is more room for the private economy to work.
The North Star
A key insight in Cato’s handbook is that affordability is not one problem. It is several: the aftermath of persistent inflation, expensive credit, and supply restrictions in housing, energy, health care, transportation, food, and finance.

But the policy North Star is still simple. If you want lower costs and more options, you have to make it easier to produce, easier to build, easier to invest, easier to compete, and easier to adapt.

That lines up closely with what I have been writing.

In Families Flourish Under Free-Market Capitalism, I made the point that affordability is not primarily a demand problem. People will always want more and better things. The real issue is whether policy allows enough supply, innovation, and competition to meet those wants at lower cost. In The State of the Economy: Texas, DFW, and Beyond, I put it even more plainly: affordability is a supply problem. That is the lens policymakers should use.

Housing Is the Clearest Example

Cato’s housing chapter makes the point Washington still struggles to say out loud: housing is expensive because too many governments make it hard to build housing.

Zoning rules, minimum lot sizes, parking mandates, accessory dwelling restrictions, manufactured-housing barriers, and other local rules suppress supply and push up prices. That is not a market failure. That is a policy choice failure.

That is why I have emphasized in my housing testimony before the Texas Senate and in Rethinking Housing Affordability that affordability gets worse when government blocks supply and then blames investors, demand, or capitalism. You do not make homes cheaper by preserving scarcity. You make them cheaper by letting more homes get built.

Health Care Is No Different

The health-care section of Cato’s handbook is just as blunt: subsidies do not solve affordability problems. In many cases, they are the problem because they separate consumers from prices and drive spending through third parties. The result is more spending without real cost discipline.

That tracks directly with my own work in Solving the Healthcare Affordability Crisis, where I argued that we do not need more bureaucratic middlemen controlling dollars and decisions. We need more direct relationships, more price transparency, and more consumer control. If you keep subsidizing a broken financing structure, you do not get affordability. You get a more expensive version of the same broken system.

Tariffs and Price Controls Make It Worse

This is where both parties really go off the rails.

Cato’s handbook points to tariffs, transportation restrictions, and food-market interventions as drivers of higher prices. That should not surprise anyone. Tariffs are taxes. Protectionism is a hidden cost on households. And price controls do not make things cheaper to produce; they just distort supply, access, and investment.

I have made that case repeatedly in my own work. In Price Controls Won’t Fix America’s Insurance Crisis, I argued that politicians keep reaching for caps and controls instead of addressing the barriers and distortions causing the problem. In my free-trade writing, I have also stressed that tariffs may sound tough, but they squeeze working households and raise costs across the economy. If the goal is affordability, you do not tax the things people buy and the inputs businesses need.

Markets, Not Mandates

The broader lesson from the Cato handbook is one I think policymakers need to hear again and again: affordability does not come from smarter political micromanagement. It comes from freer markets.

That means tighter fiscal and monetary discipline so Washington does not reignite inflation. It means fewer subsidies and mandates that mask costs instead of lowering them. It means fewer tariffs and trade barriers that raise everyday prices. It means clearing away the rules that choke off housing, energy, health care, and transportation supply. And it means respecting the role of prices and profits in guiding decisions better than politicians ever can.

That is the North Star.

Americans do not need more affordability theater. They need the freedom to produce, build, compete, and choose.

Three Takeaways for Policymakers

1. Affordability is mostly a policy problem, not a market failure.

Cato’s handbook shows that today’s cost pressures come from inflation, expensive credit, and supply restrictions across key sectors.

2. The cure is more supply and competition, not more control.

That is true in housing, health care, and trade.

3. The North Star should be economic freedom.

If policymakers want lower prices and more opportunity, they should stop replacing markets with politics and start letting people prosper.

Washington may call this the year of affordability.

Good.
​
Now it should stop doing the very things that make life unaffordable.

​One year after the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the case for protectionism looks weaker, not stronger.

These tariffs did not revive the economy, restore manufacturing, or solve the trade deficit. They expanded government power, distorted price signals, and raised taxes on Americans in the name of helping them.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of the administration’s sweeping emergency-tariff theory mattered legally, but the deeper point is economic: even when tariffs are legal, they are still bad policy. America does not need more executive-led central planning. It needs more free-market capitalism.

Bad Diagnosis

Too many politicians still tell a simple story about the Rust Belt: foreign countries cheated, bad trade deals hollowed out American industry, and tariffs can bring it all back. That story is politically useful, but economically incomplete.

A lot of the damage was homemade. For decades, too many state and local governments in the industrial Midwest piled on forced unionism, bloated spending, high taxes, rigid labor markets, slow permitting, and overregulation.

Businesses first moved from the Frost Belt to the Sun Belt because it was easier to build, hire, invest, and produce there. A BLS review of manufacturing employment in the Southeast found the South Atlantic division increased its share of U.S. manufacturing employment by 5.8 percentage points over the last 30 years.
​
That matters because manufacturing did not simply “leave America.” In many cases, it first moved to places inside America that were freer, cheaper, and more competitive. Amity Shlaes provided a good reminder of these points.

That lines up with deeper research. An NBER study on the Rust Belt’s decline found the region’s share of U.S. manufacturing employment fell from more than half in 1950 to about one-third by 2000, with weaker competition, wage premia, and slower productivity growth playing major roles.

Many places priced themselves out of competitiveness before globalization finished the job. That is an uncomfortable truth, but it is the truth.

Competitive Strength

The best way to deal with adversaries is not to make America less free and more expensive. It is to make America more competitive domestically.

That means lower taxes, restrained spending, lighter regulation, reliable energy, flexible labor markets, secure property rights, and faster permitting. It means making the United States the best place in the world to build, invest, invent, and expand.

If we are worried about China or any other rival, the answer is not to copy the logic of state-directed economics here at home. The answer is to outperform them with openness, productivity, entrepreneurship, and capital formation. That is how free societies win. That is also how they stay peaceful and prosperous.
​
This is the core insight behind much of my own free-trade writing: the stronger America becomes at home, the less it needs clumsy protectionism abroad. This was brought up several times during the discussion with Dominic Pino, Don Boudreaux, and Erik Gartzke.

Trade Reality
​
Protectionists love to point to the trade deficit as if it is a scoreboard for national success or failure. It is not.

The 2025 U.S. international trade data from BEA show total exports rose 6.2 percent to $3.43 trillion, while imports rose 4.8 percent to $4.33 trillion. The overall goods-and-services deficit was $901.5 billion, basically unchanged from 2024. The goods deficit increased to $1.24 trillion, but the services surplus rose 8.9 percent to $339.5 billion.

That is the point: the American economy is more complicated than a bumper sticker. We run a large goods deficit, yes, but we also run a substantial services surplus because the United States remains highly competitive in finance, technology, business services, and other high-value sectors.

The broader balance-of-payments data from BEA make the same point more clearly. In 2025, the U.S. current-account deficit narrowed to $1.12 trillion, or 3.6 percent of GDP, down from 4.0 percent in 2024.

By the fourth quarter, it had fallen to $190.7 billion, or 2.4 percent of GDP, the lowest share since 2021. Meanwhile, the capital account remained tiny, and the United States continued to attract enormous foreign investment flows.

Trade balances reflect saving, investment, and capital flows, not just tariff schedules. You cannot bully those fundamentals with import taxes and patriotic slogans.

Productivity Wins

There is another myth here that needs to die. Many people still talk as if falling manufacturing employment proves America no longer makes things. That is wrong.

Manufacturing output is still near historically high levels, even though manufacturing employment is far below its old peak. The Federal Reserve’s industrial production data show manufacturing output continues to run at a high level, while BLS data on manufacturing employment show factory jobs peaked decades ago and have trended down over time.

That is not mainly because Mexico or China suddenly appeared in the 1990s and 2000s. A large part of the employment decline reflects rising productivity, automation, better technology, improved logistics, and doing more with fewer workers—a trend that was already underway well before the big China shock debates.

That is a good thing, not a bad thing. Prosperity comes from producing more value with less labor tied up in any one sector so workers and capital can shift into other valuable uses.

This is what happened in agriculture, too. America did not become weaker because fewer people worked on farms. America became richer because productivity rose and people were freed up to do other things. Manufacturing follows the same logic.

The goal is not to maximize the number of workers standing in factories. The goal is to maximize output, wages, innovation, and living standards across the economy.

Seen Unseen

This is where Frédéric Bastiat’s lesson on the seen and the unseen still matters. The seen is the politician standing in front of a factory claiming tariffs saved jobs. The unseen is everything else: higher input costs for manufacturers, less business investment, weaker productivity, retaliation against exporters, fewer opportunities for workers, and higher prices for families.

That unseen damage is not theoretical. The Trump administration’s trade policies have been a real drag on economic activity. Real GDP increased at just a 0.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to BEA’s second estimate.

Broad tariffs inject uncertainty, raise costs, scramble supply chains, and reduce the room businesses need to plan and invest. And the burden does not fall mainly on foreign governments.

A Reuters report on new ECB analysis found that U.S. consumers and importers bore most of the tariff burden. So when Washington calls tariffs “revenue,” let’s be honest about what that means: Americans are paying the bill.

Mercantilist Myth

To be fair, the other side is not entirely crazy. They argue that tariffs can protect strategic industries, reduce dependence on rivals, and give domestic production breathing room. In a narrow and temporary national-security context, that argument deserves to be heard.

But that is not how broad tariff regimes work in practice. They do not stay narrow. They do not stay temporary. And they do not stay focused on genuine defense needs. They become an excuse for politicians to pick winners, punish disfavored countries, and manage commerce by decree.

That is why this is really a fight over political philosophy as much as economics.

President Trump, Peter Navarro, and other modern mercantilists treat trade less as voluntary exchange and more as a tool of political control. They see imports as weakness, trade deficits as surrender, and tariffs as strength. But they do not seriously reckon with the tradeoffs.

They focus on the factory they can see and the talking point they want to sell. They ignore the rest of the economy. Mercantilism is just bigger government dressed up in patriotic language. It means more control over prices, supply chains, capital flows, and private exchange. It means less freedom, less peace, and less prosperity.

Old Revenue Model

Historically, America did rely more heavily on tariffs to fund a far smaller federal government. Even then, tariffs were still inferior tax policy because they were narrow and distortionary. But at least there was a clearer revenue rationale in a country without today’s massive income-tax state, payroll-tax state, and sprawling administrative apparatus.

That world is gone. Today, the federal government is already enormous and financed through multiple major tax streams. Adding broad tariffs on top of that is not some return to constitutional simplicity. It is just another tax increase on Americans.

Worse, it is a narrow tax with carveouts, exemptions, favoritism, and political manipulation built into the design. Good tax policy should have a broad base, lower rates, and few if any exemptions so growth is not constantly choked by distortion.

Tariffs do the opposite.

They punish specific transactions, specific industries, and specific households. That is anti-prosperity by design.

Congress Matters

The constitutional issue matters, too. Congress has the power of the purse for a reason. Taxing trade should not become a backdoor way for presidents of either party to legislate by executive order.

The Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs under emergency authority, and the administration quickly pivoted to Section 122 workarounds reported by Reuters.

Even if every workaround were legal, that would not make them wise. Presidents should have far less unilateral power to tax trade on their own. If Congress wants tariffs, Congress should vote on them and own the consequences.

Better Path

The better answer is not complicated. End the tariffs. Reduce the size and scope of government at the federal, state, and local levels. Lower taxes. Restrain spending. Cut overregulation. End policies that punish work, investment, entrepreneurship, and production.

Let prices work. Let capital move. Let businesses respond to real demand instead of campaign slogans.

That has been my point in Econ 101: Free Trade = More Freedom, Protectionists Are Wrong: Free Trade Is the Path to Prosperity, and my broader trade and free-market work.

If policymakers really want to rebuild industrial strength, they should stop making America expensive, rigid, and hostile to production in the first place.

Trade is not the enemy of American prosperity. Trade is one of its engines. Free people trading freely will outperform politicians trying to manage commerce from Washington every single time.

For Policymakers

1. Stop treating trade deficits like a scoreboard. The current account and financial flows tell a much bigger story than a goods deficit alone.

2. Admit what helped hollow out the Rust Belt. Bad state and local policy drove firms away long before tariffs became the fashionable excuse. Competitiveness still matters.

3. Reject tariff central planning. Even when legal, tariffs are still taxes that distort investment, production, and prices. The economic tradeoffs are real.

4. Focus on productivity, not nostalgia. High manufacturing output with lower employment is often a sign of progress, not decline.

5. Keep Congress in charge of taxing trade. The president should have far less unilateral room to raise taxes through tariff workarounds. That is both a constitutional issue and an economic one.

​The latest economic data tells a concerning story.

From a weakening labor market and rising healthcare costs to slowing growth and increased uncertainty, the warning signs are becoming harder to ignore. These trends are not accidental. They are the result of policy choices that have expanded the government’s role, distorted incentives, and increased complexity across key sectors of the economy.

In this episode of This Week’s Economy, we examine how these forces are playing out across jobs, Medicare, regulation, trade, and tax policy—and why they all point to the same conclusion: policy matters, and bad policy carries real costs.

The critical question is whether leaders will course-correct before these challenges deepen.

👉 Watch or listen to the full episode and explore more analysis with show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.

Originally published on Substack.

President Trump’s State of the Union speech of a record 108 minutes last night had something Washington too often forgets: confidence.
​
After years of Americans being told to lower expectations, it was refreshing to hear a president speak as if this country can still build big things, lead the world, and win the future.

That tone matters. Americans are tired of being scolded by technocrats while their bills climb. They want to hear that the country is capable again.

But here’s the hard truth: a confident tone is not a governing strategy.

If the goal is rising living standards, the next step has to be less government interference, not new versions of it.

Too much of what passes for “action” in Washington is still about pulling levers, picking winners, adding controls, and expanding federal “help” that quietly raises prices and limits choice.

Classical liberals, like me, have warned about this for a reason: the levers don’t make people freer. They make people dependent.

The best version of this presidency—and the best version of America—is a future-first agenda with one true north star: let people prosper.

If you want the whole framework in one place, start with my policy guide.

Keep America leading on innovation

The speech signaled that the United States should stay on offense in innovation, especially on AI.

That is the right instinct. America doesn’t win by copying Europe’s regulatory mindset.

We win by letting entrepreneurs scale, compete, and deliver products that make life better and cheaper. That consumer-driven approach is why I’ve pushed an innovation-first approach instead of politicized crackdowns on success.

Call out broken systems—but fix them the market way

It’s also good to acknowledge what voters already know: the economy isn’t “rigged by accident.”

Too many industries are distorted by government-created barriers and entrenched middlemen.

Calling problems out is useful. The danger is when the “fix” becomes another layer of bureaucracy that never goes away. Government rarely shrinks itself. It multiplies.

What was missing: the future-first, classical liberal playbook

1) Spending discipline should be the opening line, not an afterthought

Washington cannot keep running up massive tabs and pretend it isn’t part of the cost-of-living squeeze.

Excessive spending distorts markets, pushes up borrowing, raises interest costs, and entrenches inflation expectations. It also turns every other priority into a gimmick fight because lawmakers refuse to address the root.

This is why the real threat is not that Americans keep too much of their own money. The real threat is that government spends too much of everyone’s money.

That’s the core point behind spending-driven debt and why sustainable budgeting needs to be the baseline.

If you want a practical model, look at how fiscal guardrails work in the states and why they matter for stability.

I’ve laid that out in sustainable budgeting and in the case for a serious federal reset like the responsible budget.

A future SOTU should say this plainly: we will cut and cap federal spending growth, eliminate budget gimmicks, and make prosperity possible again by letting the private economy breathe.

2) Tariffs are taxes—even when they sound tough

A future-first agenda doesn’t tax Americans through tariffs and call it strategy. Tariffs are taxes. Taxes raise prices. They hit families at checkout and hit producers through higher input costs. Then politicians act shocked when prices rise and growth slows.

If the goal is abundance, you don’t choke supply chains with border taxes. You cut domestic barriers to production. That’s why I keep hammering the simplest truth in economics: tariffs raise costs.

I’ve also warned how tariff escalations create uncertainty and squeeze working households in trade-war reality and why politicians keep failing the basics of Econ 101.

A pro-worker trade policy is not “tax the things you buy.” It’s “make it easier to produce here”—permitting reform, energy abundance, lower regulatory costs, and predictable rules.

3) Tax cuts should be broad, neutral, and sustainable—not swapped for hidden taxes

Broad-based income and corporate tax cuts can lift work, investment, and wages. The key is broad-based. Targeted carveouts and special breaks aren’t prosperity. They’re politics.

But even good tax cuts fail when spending restraint is absent.

If Washington refuses to control spending, tax cuts become temporary and debt becomes permanent. That’s why tax reform without restraint isn’t reform—it’s a short-lived headline.

And no, tax cuts should not be “paid for” with higher tariffs. That’s not relief.

A serious future SOTU would commit to a simple order of operations:

• cut and cap spending growth first,
• then deliver broad-based tax relief,
• and keep the base broad so everyone wins.

4) Healthcare reform should empower patients, not import price controls

Healthcare is expensive because patients aren’t treated like customers. Prices are hidden, incentives are distorted, and middlemen dominate the rails.

That’s why the continued attraction to “Most Favored Nation” drug pricing is a red flag.

MFN is price control—importing foreign government benchmarks into U.S. pricing.

Price controls may look like “savings” on paper, but the real cost shows up later as weaker incentives to innovate, slower launches, fewer trials, and less access over time.

I’ve been direct about the damage from MFN price-setting.

If the goal is to expand access and lower costs, we should push competition, transparency, faster approvals, and direct purchasing models that increase consumer choice—not bureaucratic formulas that reduce the incentive to develop tomorrow’s cures.

The same principle applies to PBMs: the middleman problem is real, but bans and mandates can backfire if incentives stay broken.

That’s why I’ve argued that PBM bans backfire and why reforms should focus on restoring market pressure, not replacing one distortion with another.

5) Housing needs supply—not scapegoats, caps, or punishment taxes

Housing may be the clearest example of the difference between serious policy and political theater.

Housing is expensive because we didn’t build enough for decades. Zoning limits, permitting delays, and process abuse restrict supply. Then politicians look for villains instead of looking in the mirror.

Restricting institutional investors won’t build a single home. Punitive taxes and ownership caps shrink rental options, discourage rehab, and risk rushed sell-offs that displace renters and destabilize neighborhoods.

The real solution is to build, build, build: streamline permitting, reduce zoning barriers, speed up approvals, and stop turning housing into a legal obstacle course.

My market-first framework is in expanding supply.

And the truly “future” housing reform Washington avoids is unwinding federal distortions that socialize risk and politicize credit.

That includes finally privatizing the mortgage giants so housing finance is driven by market signals rather than permanent federal dominance.

6) Sound money means respecting price signals—including interest rates

Interest rates are prices. Artificially forcing them down is how you set up the next bust.

When policymakers manipulate the price of credit, they create malinvestment, bubbles, and painful corrections later.

I’ve written about the Fed’s role in boom-and-bust dynamics and the distortions created by monetary manipulation—how easy money changes investment patterns before reality catches up.

If you want the clearest articulation of the mechanism, see the argument about the Fed’s boom-bust cycles and why inflation pessimism is driven by policy failure, not public “misunderstanding,” in my work on inflation and rate hikes.

A future SOTU should commit to sound money principles and fiscal restraint so rates are not constantly being used as a political pressure valve.

7) Family policy should build independence, not dependency

Washington loves programs that sound pro-family and end up being pro-bureaucracy. “Accounts,” credits, subsidies, and new federal benefit pipelines might poll well, but they often expand dependency and deepen the tax-and-transfer state.
A better family agenda is pro-growth: higher real wages through productivity, lower prices through competition, and more opportunity through less red tape.

That’s why I’ve pushed back on federal social engineering through the tax code and gimmicks that avoid the spending problem.

My conversation on the risk of Washington-designed “Trump accounts” is captured in fiscal reality.

The next SOTU I want to hear: a true north star “Let People Prosper” address

If I could write next year’s State of the Union for a president who wants a booming America, it would be a forward-looking abundance agenda—not a nostalgia tour, not a grievance list, not a government expansion dressed up as toughness.

Here is what I would want to hear—policy by policy—built around a simple principle: the federal government should stop making life harder and start getting out of the way.

1) A binding commitment to spending cuts and limits

Not “we’ll find savings.” Not “we’ll cut waste.”

A real commitment to spending cuts and future growth limits that keep government from growing faster than average taxpayer’s ability to fund it.

A pledge to end budget gimmicks, stop treating “emergencies” as permanent, and set a path to fiscal sustainability. The blueprint is in the policy guide and the spending logic is in the case for fiscal sanity.

2) Broad-based tax relief that lasts because spending falls

I want a president to say: we will cut tax rates broadly and keep the base broad.

But we will not fund tax relief with hidden tax hikes like tariffs. We will fund it by shrinking the growth of government itself.

That’s how you deliver lasting relief rather than a temporary sugar high. The warnings are already clear in spending-first reform and durable tax reform.

3) A real abundance plan: deregulate production across the economy

A future SOTU should treat regulation like what it often is: a hidden tax that raises prices, blocks competitors, and protects incumbents.

That includes:

• permitting reform so energy, housing, and infrastructure can be built,
• faster approvals for innovation,
• and rolling back rules that restrict supply.

This is what pro-growth leadership looks like: not micromanaging prices, but freeing the economy to produce more.

4) A clean break from tariff-tax politics

I would want to hear a simple pledge: we will not raise tariffs to “solve” domestic problems.

We will compete through productivity, innovation, and free exchange. We will stop using emergency powers to raise taxes without accountability.

That’s the principle behind my argument that ending tariffs is pro-worker and why policymakers must stop failing basic economics.

5) Healthcare reform that makes patients the customers again

The future SOTU should reject price controls outright—MFN included—and instead commit to reforms that expand competition:

• transparent pricing,
• portable, consumer-driven options,
• direct purchasing,
• and faster, cheaper pathways for innovation.

If you want the cautionary tale, see price-control harm. If you want the middleman warning, see why bans fail.

6) Housing reform focused on supply—and federal distortions

I want a SOTU that says: we will stop blaming investors and start building homes.

Federal policy should encourage supply, not choke it. States and localities should streamline permitting and stop weaponizing zoning.

And Washington should stop doubling down on a government-directed mortgage system that distorts incentives. That means ending permanent federal dominance and restoring market pricing in housing finance.

7) Sound money and a Fed that stops fueling cycles

A future SOTU should acknowledge a reality too many leaders avoid: boom-and-bust cycles aren’t acts of God. They’re often policy-driven.

A better economy requires predictable rules, fiscal restraint, and monetary sanity.

That includes getting serious about how credit manipulation fuels cycles—see the case for limiting the Fed’s monetary weapon.

8) A freedom-first governance pledge

Finally, I want to hear the simplest promise a leader can make to restore trust: government will serve the people by doing less—protecting rights, enforcing the rule of law, and leaving voluntary exchange alone.

That’s the only sustainable path to prosperity, the only path compatible with a free society, and the only path that keeps the American experiment worth inheriting.

Call to action

If you want policy that is serious about prosperity and honest about tradeoffs, subscribe and follow my work at Ginn Economic Consulting at vanceginn.com.

I’ll keep offering the true north star Washington rarely does: let people prosper—with more competition, more supply, and less government in the way.

​Five-point review for lawmakers

• Cap federal spending growth and adopt sustainable budgets that make reforms last.
• Reject tariff hikes and other hidden taxes that raise prices for families and producers.
• Cut tax rates broadly only alongside spending restraint, not tax swaps.
• Stop healthcare price controls like MFN and push competition and transparency.
• Fix housing by building and expanding supply, not scapegoating investors.

Thank you for reading. Subscribe today.

Originally published on Substack. 

​Washington finally got a hard “no” on a habit that’s been growing for years: presidents trying to tax by executive action.
In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the emergency statute being used did not authorize President Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

The opinion is clear: IEEPA does not authorize tariffs.

That’s not a technical win. It’s a constitutional win. And it’s a practical win for families and businesses tired of tariff roulette.

If you care about affordability, competitiveness, and liberty, this is a good day!

What the Court fixed

Tariffs are taxes. That’s the point too many politicians try to blur with patriotic marketing. In our system, sweeping taxes are supposed to run through the people’s branch, not get launched through executive improvisation.

Today’s ruling reinforces that boundary by rejecting the idea that a president can stretch emergency authority into a broad, global tariff regime.

This matters because the biggest damage from “tariff-by-pen” isn’t only higher relative prices. It’s the precedent: if one president can do it, every future president will try.

Why tariffs were never the answer

Let’s be frank: tariffs were never a good idea.

They’re sold as “making foreign countries pay.” In reality, they raise costs throughout supply chains and show up in prices, margins, and paychecks here at home.

They also invite retaliation and turn trade policy into a carveout contest where the best lobbyists win exemptions.

That’s why groups speaking for small businesses, retail, apparel and footwear, consumer technology, and many others welcomed the ruling—because they’ve been living with the cost and chaos.

And the chaos matters. Businesses can’t plan, invest, hire, or price inventory when trade taxes can swing on headlines.

The workaround temptation is already here

Here’s the part that should make lawmakers grit their teeth: the administration is already trying to route around the ruling.

Within hours, reporting indicated the White House would pivot to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—announcing a temporary 10% global tariff for 150 days, layered on top of existing duties, while teeing up other authorities.

This is the same flawed playbook with a different legal label.

And it’s not stopping there. That same reporting notes renewed plans for Section 301 investigations and revisiting Section 232 national-security tariffs.

Even if one can argue a different statute allows some tariff action, that doesn’t make it smart policy. A bad tax doesn’t become a good idea because you found a new paragraph to cite.

The tariff money: justice vs. disorder

Now for the messy reality: what happens to the tariffs already collected?

In principle, money collected under unlawful authority should go back. Some are calling for expeditious refunds and a clean administrative process.

But I’m also realistic. These tariffs were widespread and embedded in prices across countless transactions. A giant refund project could become another government fiasco—slow, uneven, litigated, and expensive to administer. Even the dissent flagged how complicated refunds could be.

So here’s the least-bad, reality-based approach:

• If refunds can be done cleanly and quickly, do them.
• If refunds become a bureaucratic calamity, apply the money to deficit reduction with a hard rule: no new spending.

Not optimal. But better than turning an unconstitutional tax into a new permanent spending stream.

What Congress should do next

The biggest lesson today is not “tariffs good” or “tariffs bad.” It’s: Congress must stop outsourcing its job.

A strong statement after the ruling made the point plainly: Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate trade, and it should treat today’s decision as a signal to reassert that authority—starting with reforms like the Trade Review Act approach.

Congress should not respond by finding new executive lanes to do the same thing. It should respond by tightening guardrails so tariff powers can’t be stretched into a blank check again.

A pro-growth path that actually lets people prosper

If the goal is stronger production, resilience, and higher wages, stop taxing trade and start fixing the policy environment that makes America expensive to build in:

• Reduce and Restrain government spending growth so debt and too often inflation pressures stop eroding paychecks.
• Cut unnecessary regulation so businesses can build, hire, and compete.
• Lower marginal tax burdens so work and investment pay off.
• Pursue more free trade agreements, especially with allies, and more trade enforcement through clear, lawful channels aimed at real misconduct, not blanket taxes that hit American families hard.

Prosperity comes from abundance—more production, more competition, more innovation—not hidden taxes at the border.

5 summary points for lawmakers
​

1. Treat tariffs as taxes—because that’s what they are.
2. Today’s 6–3 ruling is a win for the Constitution: no more emergency-law tariff blank checks.
3. Don’t replace one bad legal theory with another: the Section 122 pivot is still a tax hike.
4. Handle the tariff money responsibly: clean refunds if feasible, or deficit reduction with zero new spending if refunds become chaos.
5. Choose the pro-growth path: less spending, less regulation, lower marginal taxes, and predictable rules that let people prosper.