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

Originally published on Substack.

Washington is doing that thing again where it mistakes a slogan for a solution. The latest proof is the White House’s new executive order, “Stopping Wall Street from Competing with Main Street Homebuyers”, paired with a growing bipartisan push to “ban Wall Street” from buying homes.

It sounds pro-family. It feels decisive. It is mostly politics, not economics.

Even some Republicans are following the herd. Senators Hawley and Merkley’s bipartisan bill would prohibit large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, townhouses, and condos.

Senate Democrats just rolled out the American Homeownership Act, which targets “Wall Street landlords” by stripping key tax benefits and reinvesting the savings elsewhere.

Here’s the hard truth: if your diagnosis is wrong, your treatment will fail.

Institutional investors are not the cause of unaffordable housing. The core cause is a housing shortage created and protected by government.

The housing crisis is a supply crisis

America did not build enough homes for decades. A widely cited estimate from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that if housing growth from 2000–2020 had matched the pace from 1980–2000, the U.S. would have roughly 15 million more housing units. That is the real missing ingredient: supply.

And the biggest barriers to new supply are not on Wall Street. They’re at City Hall.

Local governments control zoning, density, parking minimums, minimum lot sizes, height limits, and endless neighborhood veto points. Those rules make it illegal or financially impossible to build the kind of housing families need, where they need it.

You cannot fix government-created scarcity with more government restrictions. That is doubling down on failure.

Investors are not “taking over” housing

The narrative says families are being “outbid” by institutional investors everywhere. The evidence says something very different.

The American Enterprise Institute finds institutional investors’ market share is less than 1% nationally, with only 22 counties reaching 5–10%.

The Mercatus Center reports large institutional owners have never exceeded 2.5% of home purchases in any quarter.
Most investor-owned inventory is held by small mom-and-pop landlords. And more importantly, much of the institutional activity is shifting away from buying existing homes and toward building new rental communities.

This matters because the policy proposals are aimed at a tiny slice of the market, while ignoring the actual constraint: not enough homes.

Single-family rentals help families, not “Wall Street”

Here’s what gets lost in the political shouting.

Single-family rentals are a pressure valve for families who are not ready to buy, cannot save a large down payment, or are priced out by interest rates. When supply is tight, rentals in good neighborhoods can be a lifeline.

That is not theory. Research by Tom Mayock finds that increased single-family rental supply can help economically disadvantaged children access higher-performing schools.

And the broader research on neighborhoods is clear: Raj Chetty’s work shows that moving to lower-poverty, higher-opportunity neighborhoods improves long-run outcomes for children, especially when they move young.

So when lawmakers talk about “helping families” by shrinking the single-family rental industry, they are playing with real lives. Less rental supply means higher rents, fewer options near good schools, and less mobility for working families.

If Congress meddles anyway, the least-bad guardrails matter

I don’t like carveouts. But if Congress insists on intervening, then write the bill to avoid detonating the single-family rental market.

Two provisions are now being debated that matter a lot:

1) Preemption over the states.

If a federal bill moves, preemption can prevent a patchwork of state bans, including a unilateral ban from California. A 50-state mess of restrictions is how you guarantee uncertainty, reduced investment, and fewer homes built.

2) An investor-to-investor sales exemption.

This is the other key fix under discussion: allowing institutional investors to sell homes to one another. That does not compete with families and it helps preserve single-family rentals. It also avoids forced liquidations that can trigger fire sales, displace renters, and depress neighborhood values.

I still prefer Congress not meddle at all. But if it does, these guardrails help reduce much of the collateral damage.

The Rotterdam warning: bans raise rents

If lawmakers want a real-world test case, look at the Netherlands. A study of the Dutch “buy-to-let” restrictions finds the ban increased rental prices, consistent with reduced rental supply.

That is what happens when government tries to outlaw a category of buyer instead of fixing supply. Scarcity wins.

What policymakers should do instead

If you actually want affordability, do the boring work that matters:

• Legalize more housing types locally: duplexes, ADUs, lot splits, and modest density
• Streamline permitting and end open-ended delays
• Cut fees and mandates that raise construction costs
• Stop treating property taxes as a harmless funding source. They punish ownership and investment, year after year
• Encourage building, including build-to-rent, to expand options for families

The best evidence for this approach is painfully simple: when supply rises, housing prices and rents fall.

Call to action

If you want to help families, stop chasing applause lines and start focusing on increasing housing supply.

Tell your city council and county commissioners: reform zoning, speed up permits, and allow builders to build. Tell Congress: don’t scapegoat a tiny share of the market, and don’t double down on government failure with more government.

And if you want a deeper dive, see my writings and the full breakdown on this issue at vanceginn.com.

Government failures broke housing. Markets kept it functioning. The solution is less government and more building, mostly at the local level.
​
Get more insights here:

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.
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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. 

​I hope you’ve had a great week! I’m ready for a wonderful weekend with family and multiple soccer games for my boys.

Yesterday, I presented at the Amrize leadership conference in Plano, Texas. It was great group. Below are my prepared remarks and you can view my slides here.

Cement is the economy made physical.

When economists debate growth, inflation, or productivity, those debates eventually show up in cement, concrete, and construction materials.

If something is wrong with the economy, your industry costs experience it quickly. If policy is broken, your timelines stretch first. If capital is discouraged, your projects get delayed first.

That’s why the state of the Texas economy—and especially the Dallas–Fort Worth economy—matters so much to this industry.

My calling is simple: to let people prosper in whatever way works best for them.

After decades of studying economics, teaching it, advising lawmakers, serving as Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and now president of Ginn Economic Consulting, working with more than 20 organizations across the country, I’ve learned something clearly.

The system that lets the most people prosper—across industries, income levels, and generations—is free-market capitalism. Not government planning. Not price controls. Not industrial policy.

Free people, free exchange, free enterprise. And few industries could understand this better than the cement industry.

Why Texas Works—and Why DFW Leads

Texas continues to outperform most of the country because capitalism is allowed to work here more than in most states.
Texas has no personal income tax. It continues to gain population while high-tax states lose it. Capital continues flowing here because returns are possible.

Construction alone accounts for roughly 5 percent of Texas’s GDP, compared with about 4.5 percent nationally, meaning Texas is still expanding physical capacity while other states restrict it.

But a major engine inside Texas is DFW.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas is experiencing a historic manufacturing building boom, with more than $289 billion in nonresidential construction contracts announced since mid-2022—much of it concentrated in North Texas.

That scale matters. Manufacturing and industrial facilities are not marginal users of cement. They are among the most intensive consumers of concrete, foundations, paving, and structural materials.

The Dallas Regional Chamber documents DFW as one of the nation’s top destinations for corporate relocations and industrial expansion, driven by logistics access, workforce depth, and business-cost advantages.

DFW is a major contributor to Texas’s $2.8 trillion nominal economy or $2.3 trillion real economy (adjusted for inflation), with durable goods manufacturing playing a central role in regional GDP growth.

Cement sits at the center of all of it. You cannot have growth without materials. You cannot have materials without capital. And you cannot have capital without confidence.

DFW as a Cement Demand Engine

DFW’s economy acts as a massive engine for cement consumption—not just because of its size, but because of how it grows.

Industrial Infrastructure Hub

DFW leads the nation in industrial construction. That volume of activity directly fuels demand for regional cement producers, including the Midlothian area—often referred to as the “Cement Capital of Texas.”

Industrial buildings are concrete-intensive by design: slabs, tilt-wall panels, heavy foundations, and extensive paving.

Infrastructure and Transportation

Texas infrastructure projects are among the largest concrete consumers in the country. Projects like the Southeast Connector and the I-35 expansion rely heavily on cement and aggregates.

Infrastructure investment in Texas is projected to consume millions of tons of cement annually, underscoring how infrastructure demand directly affects cement markets.

The Data Center Link

DFW has become a top-tier global hub for data center construction, one of the most concrete-intensive building types.

Massive campuses developed by firms like Compass Datacenters and Meta require:

• Thick foundations
• Precast concrete shells
• Fire-rated concrete walls
• Heavy-load paving and access roads

These projects concentrate demand in suburbs like Red Oak and Midlothian, creating localized but sustained cement demand.

The data center sector is also driving innovation in lower-carbon cement and concrete, as tech firms push for emissions reductions in large-scale construction—creating new market opportunities driven by private demand, not mandates.

Capitalism, Supply, and Affordability

Affordability is not primarily a demand problem, as people tend to have unlimited desires. It is a supply problem.

Prices rise when supply cannot keep up with demand. Supply expands when investment is allowed. Investment happens when returns are predictable.

Cement plants are not startups. They require:

• Hundreds of millions in upfront capital
• Decades-long planning horizons
• Reliable energy
• Predictable permitting
• Confidence that production will not be regulated out of existence

Capital does not chase uncertainty nor respond to slogans. Capital responds to predictability.

When government interferes with supply—through permitting delays, energy restrictions, or regulatory uncertainty—prices rise. Not because companies want them to, but because supply tightens.

You cannot punish supply and expect abundance.

Amrize and Free-Market Capitalism in Practice

This is where Amrize provides an example of capitalism working as intended.

Amrize’s strategy emphasizes American-made cement, long-term capital investment, operational efficiency, and producing close to demand rather than relying on fragile global supply chains.

Cement is heavy, energy-intensive, and logistics-dependent. Importing it at scale increases volatility. Domestic production reduces transportation risk, supply shocks, and long-run cost instability.

You don’t stabilize prices by controlling them. You stabilize prices by expanding reliable supply. That’s not protectionism. That’s not industrial policy. That’s econ 101.

Labor Markets: Capitalism Sending Clear Signals

Historically, construction wages in Texas have risen meaningfully, particularly for skilled trades such as cement finishers, equipment operators, and plant workers. That wage growth is not a failure. It is a signal.

It tells us:

• Demand is strong
• Skills are scarce
• Productivity matters

Labor constraints are not caused by markets. They are caused by policy barriers: occupational licensing that slows entry, training pipelines misaligned with industry needs, housing costs pushing workers farther from job sites, and federal immigration policy disconnected from labor realities.

DFW’s construction sector alone recorded an 8 percent job increase in 2023, the fastest growth in the nation—clear evidence of demand outpacing supply.

Labor supply is elastic over time—if allowed. When people can train quickly, move freely, and work legally, supply rises and output expands. When the government blocks adjustment, wages rise without productivity gains, pushing costs higher without increasing supply.

You cannot regulate your way to productivity.

Energy, Materials, and Capital Formation

Energy policy is economic policy for the cement industry.

Reliable, affordable energy is essential to domestic materials production. When energy becomes less reliable or more expensive, every ton costs more to produce.

Producer price data show sustained upward pressure on concrete and related materials, reflecting energy, transportation, and regulatory costs rather than market power.

Capital formation requires predictability. Cement plants plan decades ahead. They do not ask for subsidies. They ask for certainty.

When policy introduces permitting delays, regulatory ambiguity, or energy instability, investment slows, capacity tightens, and prices rise. That is not greed. That is economics.

Government Spending and the Quiet Squeeze

Texas has benefited from strong revenues, but state and local government spending has recently grown faster than the average taxpayer’s ability to afford it, as measured by population growth plus inflation. That matters.

When government grows faster than this, property taxes rise, fees multiply, compliance expands, and private investment gets crowded out over time.

Cement and concrete producers feel this directly through higher property tax burdens, longer approval timelines, and infrastructure funding diluted by political priorities rather than economic need.

Capital looks at trajectory, not just current conditions.

Federal Policy and the Cost of Interference

Many cost pressures are federal.

Trillion-dollar deficits push interest rates higher. Higher rates raise financing costs for capital-intensive projects. Long-term investment becomes riskier.

Federal housing policy emphasizes subsidies rather than supply. Subsidies increase demand without increasing supply. Subsidies without supply raise prices.

Energy policy, transportation policy, and regulatory layering all feed into construction costs that cement producers feel first. Immigration efforts may be warranted, but it creates labor shortages for many businesses. And protectionist trade policies may try to balance trade imbalances, but at the cost of higher prices and uncertain supply chains.

Capitalism can absorb shocks. It cannot thrive under constant interference. And we need more capitalism, not socialism.

The Pro-Growth Path Forward

If we want people to prosper, we need more free-market capitalism, not less.

That means restraining government spending. Controlling property taxes by controlling local budgets. Streamlining permitting and zoning. Expanding labor mobility and training pathways. Supporting domestic materials production. Reducing federal distortions that raise costs without expanding supply.

These principles are laid out in my guide on Pro-Growth Strategies for Construction Industry Prosperity. This is not ideology. It is evidence.

Let People Prosper

Capitalism is not perfect. But it is unmatched.

It has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in history. It has created more housing, infrastructure, and opportunity than any alternative. Cement proves this every day.

You cannot legislate affordability, regulate productivity, nor control prices into abundance. You can only allow it.

Texas has benefited because it has mostly allowed capitalism to work. DFW has grown because supply has been allowed to expand. The cement industry succeeds when capital is free to invest.
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The choice ahead is simple. More capitalism—or more interference. If we choose freedom, people prosper.

​How property taxes undermine homeownership—and what states and localities can do to fix it.

Affordability is a major issue for voters. Families are feeling squeezed by higher housing costs, rising insurance premiums, and everyday expenses that often outpace income. For many Americans, the question is no longer just whether they can buy a home, but whether they can afford to keep the one they are in.

Across the country, states are beginning to confront one overlooked driver of the housing affordability crisis: property taxes. 

From proposals to cap assessments to more ambitious efforts to reduce or even eliminate property taxes, lawmakers are reexamining a tax that quietly raises housing costs annually.

In This Week’s Economy, we’ll look at how property taxes undermine true homeownership, why they fall hardest on those least able to pay, and what meaningful reform would require if states and localities want to restore affordability and let people prosper. 

Check out the show notes at ⁠vanceginn.substack.com⁠ and more information on my work at Ginn Economic Consulting at ⁠vanceginn.com⁠. Thank you for watching. Please subscribe and share now!

Originally published at The Austin American-Statesman.

​Austin is one of the country’s most-watched housing markets. This is because it highlights what can happen when a city allows more housing to be built. Yet the national debate over housing affordability has increasingly been hijacked by a convenient scapegoat: claims that AI-powered pricing software is “fixing” rents.

This fixation on pricing software avoids the forces actually driving rents upward and, in some parts of the country, downward: supply and demand. If cities want real solutions, leaders should stop blaming data tools for high rents and instead focus on the barriers preventing the construction of housing that people need.

Claims that algorithmic pricing tools “set” rents or compel landlords to raise prices have captured headlines, but they don’t hold water — because they ignore basic incentives. Landlords lose money when units sit vacant, regardless of what software they use. 

Recent settlements involving rent-pricing software have resulted in no findings of wrongdoing or admissions of liability. Federal courts have been clear: Analyzing data to suggest prices is not the same as controlling them. In competitive markets, landlords still bear the cost of pricing above what renters are willing to pay. As the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put it, “Obtaining information from the same source does not reduce the incentive to compete.”

Despite the use of 21st-century tools, market fundamentals still determine rent levels.

Those fundamentals point to a single, unavoidable truth: America has a massive housing shortage — and no amount of software regulation can change that. Zillow notes that the U.S. housing shortage is 4.7 million units nationwide. When millions more people need homes than there are available, rents rise. If algorithms truly “caused” high rents, we would expect cities that restrict them to be more affordable. Yet those areas are often where rents are rising the most. 

In New York and San Francisco, rental housing is heavily regulated and data-driven pricing tools face tight restrictions. In both cities, rent growth continues to outpace national trends. New York's median rent is up 18% since the start of 2020, and San Francisco remains one of the most expensive rental markets, despite a ban on rental pricing technology taking effect in October 2024.

That’s no coincidence. These cities also share another trait: decades of underbuilding driven by zoning restrictions, lengthy approvals and political resistance to growth. San Francisco adds housing at one of the slowest rates in the U.S., and New York City routinely approves far fewer units than economists say are needed to meet demand. Tight supply, not technology, is the common denominator.

Now look at Austin. Some critics have claimed that its rent levels demonstrate the “dangers” of algorithmic pricing, yet the data tell a very different story. 

Austin has been building at a rate unmatched by almost any other major metro. From 2021 to 2023, the Austin region permitted more new apartments per capita than any other major Texas metro, with 10 new apartments per 1,000 residents. The effect has been undeniable: Austin rents are falling because it is building more housing.
There is no mystery to be solved. When supply grows faster than demand, prices fall. 
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When supply is choked off, prices tend to rise. The pricing tools being blamed help property managers understand market conditions by analyzing historical trends and anonymized data. 

Political temptation to target tech companies distracts from the real levers policymakers control. In many cities, 40% or more of the residential land is locked into single-family zoning, making it illegal to build apartments, townhomes or smaller, more affordable options.

Blaming software won’t put a roof over a single family’s head. Reforming zoning laws, reducing minimum lot sizes, streamlining approvals, lowering property taxes, and allowing housing supply to respond to demand will. If leaders are serious about affordability, they must stop chasing politically convenient narratives and start removing the barriers that make housing scarce. 

​The path forward is clear: Allow more homes to be built where people want to live. Until we address government failures behind undersupply, America’s housing affordability problem will persist.

Originally published as a Letter to the Editor in The Wall Street Journal. 

I served as chief economist at President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget during his first term, and I agree with Matthew Continetti (“Big Government Won’t Help President Trump on Affordability,” Free Expression, Jan. 16).

What made the first Trump administration successful on affordability was supply-side reforms that trusted markets to work. Cutting regulations, expanding the housing supply, boosting domestic energy production and promoting competition to lower prices all proved effective.

That’s why it is troubling to see the president flirting with policies straight out of the Sanders-Warren playbook in his second term.

Price controls on credit card interest rates may sound populist, but decades of evidence show they reduce access to credit, especially for lower-income and higher-risk borrowers.

Banning institutional investors from single-family housing would reduce capital flowing into housing markets, shrink supply and ultimately raise costs for renters and buyers. Housing affordability improves when we build more homes, not when we restrict who can finance them.

President Trump’s first term proved that market-driven solutions work. Returning to those principles is the surest path to restoring affordability and economic growth.

Vance Ginn

Round Rock, Texas

Originally published as a Letter to the Editor at The Washington Post. 

I was chief economist at President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget during his first term, and I agree with Matthew Lynn’s Jan. 15 online op-ed, “We should feel nostalgic for the first Trump term.”

What made the first Trump administration successful on affordability was supply-side reforms that trusted markets to work. Cutting regulations, boosting domestic energy production, providing tax relief and promoting competition to lower prices all proved effective.

That’s why it is troubling to see the president flirting with policies straight out of the Democratic Party’s playbook in his second term, particularly over the past few weeks.

Price controls on credit card interest rates may sound populist, but decades of evidence show they reduce access to credit, especially for lower-income and higher-risk borrowers.

Banning institutional investors from buying single-family housing would reduce capital flowing into housing markets, shrink supply, and ultimately raise costs for renters and buyers. Housing affordability improves when we build more homes, not when we restrict who can finance them.

Trump’s first term showed that market-driven solutions work. Returning to those principles is the surest path to restoring affordability and economic growth.

Vance Ginn, Round Rock, Texas

​If you’re trying to understand why starter homes have vanished, why marriage and birth rates are falling, or why your kids can’t afford to move out, you won’t find a clearer guide than Dr. Emily Hamilton. Her latest piece in Governing, “To Support Families, Repair the Housing Ladder,” is a must-read. It makes a simple but devastating point: 

We’ve eliminated the low rungs of the housing ladder—and now we’re shocked people can’t climb it.

Starter apartments? Outlawed. Manufactured housing? Zoned out.SROs? Gone. Family-friendly rentals? Blocked by NIMBY politics. And now the U.S. is flirting with population decline for the first time ever. This conversation explains why—and what to do about it.

👉 Subscribe on vanceginn.substack.com to get shows and show notes in your inbox and follow my handle on X at @vanceginn for more pro-growth policy content that doesn’t pull punches.

​This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful to bring you a conversation that captures exactly why freedom matters so much for human flourishing. In this special holiday episode of the Let People Prosper Show, I sit down with Dr. Jason Sorens, Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, whose work shows—again and again—that prosperity grows when government gets out of the way and lets people build, create, move, and thrive.
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We talk about housing affordability, zoning reform, migration trends, and the economic importance of local freedom. On this day of gratitude, Jason’s message is a needed reminder: America’s prosperity has always come from free people making free choices, not from bureaucratic micromanagement.

If you’re thankful for liberty, opportunity, and the chance to build a better life, this episode fits the moment perfectly.
For more insights, visit vanceginn.com. You can also get even greater value by subscribing to my Substack newsletter at vanceginn.substack.com. Please share with your friends, family, and broader social media network. 

(0:00) – Thanksgiving intro & guest bio
(3:00) – Why freedom deserves our gratitude
(9:00) – Housing affordability challenges
(15:00) – Zoning’s impact on opportunity
(21:00) – How government distorts prosperity
(27:00) – Private alternatives and innovation
(33:00) – What opportunity zones got wrong
(39:00) – Property taxes and civic accountability
(45:00) – Freedom in the 50 States
(51:00) – Gratitude, freedom, and future policy