With the elections of Zohran Mamdani in New York and another socialist trust fund baby as mayor of Seattle, and the end of a pointless 43-day, Democrat-induced government shutdown, national attention has refocused on the issue of affordability. But what the media won’t tell you is that the left-wing agenda that young New Yorkers and congressional Democrats are fighting for will not make America’s affordability problem better. In fact, it is the cause of the problem and will surely make it worse.
To the dismay of conservatives and moderates in both parties, 34-year-old Mamdani—whose qualifications include time as a rapper and a campaign manager for socialist candidates—won big in New York, capturing the support of recent immigrants as well as those who told pollsters they were struggling financially. Mamdani overperformed with renters and underperformed with homeowners. The irony that Mamdani himself has rich and famous parents and went to elite private schools seemed to be lost on voters. Katie Wilson—the 43-year-old socialist mayor-elect of Seattle—funded her campaign with the help of her parents.
Conservatives shouldn’t be surprised to see young people in blue cities getting bluer. The middle-class squeeze has been building for decades, and its impact has been especially hard on young people who are just starting out and trying to make their first major (expensive) adult decisions, like whether to get married, buy a house, or have kids. Nearly one in five Americans aged 25 to 34 is living with their parents. Nearly one in six Americans aged 24 to 30 is neither working nor studying. The typical cost of buying a home is now five times median income—the most in more than 30 years. The average homebuyer is nearly 60 years old, with the average first-time buyer pushing 40. The problem remains very real and is still screaming for attention.
President Trump understands this and has made incredible progress to lower costs, particularly for energy and for pharmaceuticals. But the high cost of living—especially in big, blue cities—is a problem impossible to vanquish in just nine months of a presidency. Like so many of the other problems that President Trump is working to solve, it is a generational problem that has festered for decades.
Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman famously said that inflation is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Inflation occurs when too much money chases too few goods. The main driver for the past century of inflation has been reckless government spending. And what is the solution that Mamdani and his fellow socialists offer to every perceived problem? Even more reckless government spending. If young New Yorkers and young Washingtonians think the solution to their problems is more of what has created those problems in the first place –out-of-control government spending—they’ve been deeply misled.
Democrats like to play word games and refer to the issue as “affordability” instead of inflation. Why? Because, instead of lowering prices, Democrats simply offer to cut you a government check so you can “afford” higher prices. Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing? Hand out free subsidies to the big insurance companies charging those premiums. Groceries cost too much? Create government-funded grocery stores. Free stuff from the government might seem to “solve” the “affordability” problem, but only for a specific subset of the population—welfare recipients. It worsens the problem for everyone else. Soon, more handouts will be needed to keep up. Democrats’ big government, big welfare initiatives aren’t the solution to the affordability problem. They are the cause.
So what is the actual solution? For starters, if Mamdani is serious about addressing the problem of affordability, he could start by cooperating with federal authorities to remove the 670,000 illegal aliens who’ve invaded New York. The cost of illegal immigration on education, hospitals, and other social services is undeniable, not to mention the strain on housing and the influx of crime. Cities like Denver have had to cut back on services to American citizens to pay for illegal immigration. Mamdani has proposed $100 million in free benefits for illegal aliens, which will come at the expense of the voters who just elected him, because they are worried about making ends meet.
Affordability was a key issue in the 2024 elections as well as in the 2025 elections. Prices will be an issue in the 2026 midterms, as well—whether they come down or not. President Trump has made admirable progress on this issue, and Congress should follow his lead and become laser-focused on addressing affordability with conservative solutions that actually work. Bringing down prices meaningfully will require shutting off the D.C. money printer through ambitious cuts in federal spending. Otherwise, the dollar—like the promises of socialist politicians—eventually won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
Stewart Whitson is Senior Director of Federal Affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability.