Free Markets

Christian Britschgi | 12.31.2025 3:35 PM

This week, incoming Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger released a policy agenda for her administration that's allegedly intended to deliver lower living costs for the state's residents.

None of her initial proposals—mandating utilities build more energy storage capacity, stretching out the eviction process for delinquent renters, and banning health insurers from charging additional fees to tobacco users—seems particularly promising.

As Manhattan Institute scholar Judge Glock pointed out on X, basically everything the governor-elect has proposed will raise, not lower, costs.

This is impressive in that every single one of VA Gov Spannberger's affordability proposals increases costs:
Force health insurers to cover smokers at the same rate (premium increases)
Protect neighborhood pharmacies (drug price increases)
Extend time to terminate leases (rent…

— Judge Glock (@judgeglock) December 30, 2025

That's pretty disappointing (if not necessarily surprising) for a politician who just won her gubernatorial election by pitching herself as the "affordability" candidate.

Across the political spectrum, everyone is trying to say their agenda will enable Americans to buy more for less, while proposing policies that would leave everyone poorer.

Zohran Mamdani elevated himself from long-shot leftist candidate to soon-to-be Mayor of New York City with a relentless focus on making the Big Apple affordable to working-class residents. (His actual agenda is a lot more focused on using price controls to obscure how much everything actually costs.)

President Donald Trump has likewise claimed the mantle of "affordability," even as he's hiked tariffs on imported goods.

It'd be tempting then to dismiss affordability politics as empty messaging or even........

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