 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:
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:
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:
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
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