ICYMI: A GOP Playbook for an Affordability Offensive

Senator Tim Sheehy penned an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal providing a playbook for an all-out affordability offensive by ripping up red tape, forcing transparency, and unleashing competition.

In case you missed it…

A GOP Playbook for an Affordability Offensive

Senator Tim Sheehy

November 28, 2025

WSJ  

President Trump has honored his promises: The border is secure, fiscal discipline is returning and trillions in investments have poured into the U.S. Yet one stubborn problem remains: The inflation that the Biden-Harris administration unleashed is crushing working families.

This is why your editorial “An Agenda-Less GOP Congress” (Nov. 15) is correct: Many Americans are still asking, “What’s next?” For millions of families, the math doesn’t work. Rent eats half the paycheck. A week’s groceries cost what a car payment used to. One hospital bill can wipe out a year’s savings.

The left’s answer is almost always the same: Build more bureaucracy and throw more subsidies at the problem. We’ve tried that for decades. The result has been the most expensive housing in the developed world, grocery prices still 25% to 30% higher than pre-pandemic levels and health insurance premiums that climb faster than wages every year.

Republicans should use their control of Congress and the White House to implement a new strategy that champions competition, deregulation, and empowering Americans over faceless government bureaucrats.

Housing supply constraints have driven up costs for years. The median home price exceeds $400,000 and rents consume more than 30% of many households’ income, making for the highest rent-to-income ratio since 1980. We must figure out a way to build housing faster and cheaper.

A good place to start is by reforming zoning laws, which have turned the average construction permitting process into a multiyear brawl with endless environmental reviews and lawsuits. Japan, about the same size as Montana, cut through zoning hurdles and now builds homes three times as fast at half the price. We can do likewise without turning Bozeman into Tokyo.

Grocery prices are up more than 30% since 2019. Four corporate giants control 85% of the meatpacking market, squeezing ranchers, hiking consumer prices and padding their margins. Aggressive enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act can break that oligopoly and force real competition. When cronyism gives way to the free market, prices at the checkout will drop.

That principle applies in healthcare too. The same aspirin costs 4 cents at Walmart and $82 in a hospital two miles away because patients shop blind. Every developed country that spends half what we do on healthcare has mandatory price transparency. We don’t because the hospital lobby fights it. Let’s force hospitals to post real prices upfront, as gas stations do. Turn patients into consumers and watch costs plummet.

The 2024 landslide wasn’t a pat on the back – it was a demand. Americans voted for paychecks that stretch further and the return of the basic American promise: Work hard, play by the rules, and you can get ahead.

We now control the White House, Senate and House. There are no more excuses. Deliver an all-out affordability offensive — rip up red tape, force transparency and unleash competition — or watch the mandate evaporate by 2026. This is bigger than the next election. It’s the difference between a Republican resurgence that lasts a generation and a one-term detour. Conservative ideas work. Now we have to prove it, not with words but with results families can feel at the kitchen table and the gas pump.