Advancing American Freedom
101 Policy Solutions to Make Life More Affordable. Affordability 101 offers a playbook with 101 policy solutions to make life more affordable in 2026 and beyond.
Advancing American Freedom · September 2026
101 Policy Solutions to Make Life More Affordable
The most durable way to make life more affordable is remarkably straightforward: make it easier to produce more. Build more homes. Produce more energy. Encourage more businesses to compete for customers. Give patients more health care choices. Let workers enter professions without unnecessary government barriers. Encourage investment and innovation. Let families decide how to spend more of their own money.
Chapter 1
13 memosConsumer Choice offers policy solutions that would keep the government from dictating or influencing which products or features Americans can purchase—and which features they must purchase.
“It’s not the government’s function to… impose unnecessary restrictions on the marketplace.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 2
7 memosAbundant Energy and Natural Resources describes ways that policymakers could remove unnecessary government barriers to accessing the energy resources that power America’s economy, and it includes ideas to improve the government’s stewardship of the natural resources it manages.
“Our country was built on cheap energy.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 3
14 memosFreedom to Work and Enterprise outlines ways to make government policy more conducive to work and enterprise, ensuring that the government doesn’t act as a gatekeeper telling workers and businesses whether they have permission to enter mutually beneficial arrangements or pursue new enterprises.
“[The] system must be replaced by one that restores incentive for the worker and for industry—a system that rewards initiative and effort and encourages thrift.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 4
11 memosFreedom to Build suggests policy solutions that would help reduce red tape, regulations, restrictions, ill-advised taxes, and other government-imposed barriers that stand in the way of quick and efficient construction of new homes, workplaces, hospitals, and infrastructure in the United States.
“But there remains the greatness of our people, our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 5
12 memosFreedom to Innovate and Compete discusses potential reforms to foster private innovation and competition with reforms that remove barriers to technological and medical innovation, privatize government enterprises, and place checks on the expansion of the regulatory state.
“Putting the market system to work for these objectives is an essential first step for their achievement. Additional multibillion dollar federal bureaus and programs are not the answer.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 6
7 memosTax Reform outlines some of the economically destructive taxes imposed by federal, state, and local governments that should be eliminated or reduced, along with other potential pro-growth reforms.
“At the same time, the federal government has cynically told us that high taxes on business will in some way solve the problem and allow the average taxpayer to pay less. Well, business is not a taxpayer, it is a tax collector. Business has to pass its tax burden on to the customer as part of the cost of doing business.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 7
6 memosFree Trade and Commerce focuses on ways to facilitate more commerce through the reduction or removal of tariffs and other artificial trade barriers with friendly nations and allowing more seamless commerce across the United States.
“A developing closeness between the United States, Canada and Mexico would [show] that we were prepared for a long haul, looking outward again and confident of our future; that together we are going to create jobs, to generate new fortunes of wealth for many, and provide a legacy for the children of each of our countries.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 8
10 memosFiscal Restraint proposes major spending reforms to reverse the out-of-control growth of the federal deficit and limit borrowing to sustainable levels, which would ease pressure on the Federal Reserve to print money to finance new debt.
“The people have not created this disaster in our economy; the federal government has. It has overspent, overestimated, and overregulated. It has failed to deliver services within the revenues it should be allowed to raise from taxes.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 9
9 memosSound Money and Capital Freedom describes policy changes that would support a sound dollar and more efficient capital allocation by limiting the Federal Reserve’s discretion to expand the money supply and allowing a freer flow of private capital.
“In the 34 years since the end of World War II, the federal government has spent 448 billion dollars more than it has collected in taxes—448 billion dollars of printing press money, which has made every dollar you earn worth less and less.”Ronald Reagan
Chapter 10
12 memosAccountability and Oversight outlines reforms that would reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs and help ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly.
“We must force the entire federal bureaucracy to live in the real world of reduced spending, streamlined functions and accountability to the people it serves. We must review the functions of the federal government to determine which of those are the proper province of levels of government closer to the people.”Ronald Reagan
Affordability 101
Preston BrashersResearch FellowPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
Gadai BulgacPolicy AnalystInstitute for Statistical Policy Analysis
David R. BurtonSenior Fellow in Economic PolicyPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
Zachary Cady, Ph.D.Senior EconomistInstitute for Statistical Policy Analysis
Austin GaePolicy AnalystPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
Rachel GreszlerSenior Research FellowPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
Joel GriffithSenior Research FellowPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
Paul LarkinSenior Legal FellowThe Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law
John SheltonVice PresidentPolicy Department
Richard SternVice PresidentPlymouth Institute for Free Enterprise
J. Marc WheatGeneral CounselLegal Department
Jace WhiteManager, Government RelationsPolicy DepartmentAffordability 101 also benefited from invaluable contributions from:
Madeline AlfonsoDigital AssistantStuart Deery
A.J. DieterlePolicy Assistant
Davison DrummResearch AssistantZechariah Hall
Timothy HarperDirector of Constitutional Studies
Julia JensenPress Assistant
Kat MillerPolicy Analyst
John PelusoPolicy Analyst
Hans von SpakovskySenior Legal Fellow
Jonah WendtCommunications Director
