Solving the cost of living crisis is our number one priority

America's cost of living has become a full blown crisis this decade, but its been a steadily growing threat my entire adult life. I remember plenty of months in my twenties where I or a roommate would run out of money and struggle to pay bills. This was the biggest culture clash I experienced moving to China; Subway rides were 50¢, a good lunch was $3-$5, and for the first time in my life I didn't have to keep track of how much I paid for utilities. My rent in 2025 for a nicer loft apartment in Beijing was actually cheaper than my rent for an apartment in rural Missouri.

That difference in cost of living is ridiculous and why the NYT wrote "The American Dream is Alive, In China." We as a country must solve this affordability crisis as our #1 priority because its leaving Americans without the money to do anything else but survive. There are three major drivers of the affordability crisis: housing, healthcare, and education costs. Inside each of these three areas is a very complex series of problems, and you can check my analysis of them on their individual issue pages. Here I will write about the broad pattern repeating in each of them, and what an Abundance agenda means.

Housing, healthcare, and education are all necessities for modern life that have become predatory and subject to artificial scarcity. Various decisions by many different people limit their supply and drive up their cost. During the high inflation after covid-19, 70% of the inflation pressure was housing. We are paying twice as much for healthcare per person as other wealthy countries do. The cost of college continues to rise three times faster than the inflation rate across the economy. But its important to realize that even if we are not buying a house or going to college now, all of us pay for the elevated price of the housing, healthcare, and education needed by every business' employees. These necessities for every worker drive up the price of every purchase across the economy.

The meaning of an Abundance Agenda

The policy prescriptions for each industry might be complex, but the general pattern is the same: we want to dramatically increase the supply so that the cost comes down. An "abundance" of housing, medical care and education options brings down the cost. In America's cold-war past, we resisted government intervention in these markets and were very receptive to even private education and the market supplying these necessities. My main argument is that we should think of these more like public goods than market goods. The logic of markets is to reach efficiency: only producing as much supply as maximizes the profit. A public good is one where you want mass availability so that everyone can use it cheaply.

I know from my small private school in Beijing. The reason I could do so well as to start a private school is because the ability to provide competitive-level debate teachers in person in China is very limited. Because of the mismatch in supply and demand, the price of my classes rose quite high until I only had as many students as I could handle teaching in one semester. We even delayed hiring teachers and expanding classes in 2022 due to the weak economic condition. Imagine your kid's high school having less class during a recession.

For education, healthcare, and housing, we are actually better off if there is a significant oversupply because the rest of the economy benefits from keeping these costs down. No matter what you buy, it will be cheaper if the people you buy it from have more affordable housing, cheaper health insurance, and paid off tuition. But its also a big improvement for each of those 3 industries as well if there was a government intervention to improve cost and quality. An abundance of education opportunities means our kids can fully realize their potential instead of being passed over for someone deemed more likely to succeed. An abundance of healthcare means people don't need to be financially wiped out by disease in the family (60% of all US bankruptcies are from medical debt). An abundance of housing means people can reliably move nearby to where work is rather than being priced out of economic opportunity. Ultimately, an abundance agenda is about creating an abundance of opportunity; making opportunity cheap and widely available enough that people don't feel trapped by circumstances beyond their control.