In the mid-term elections voters gave Democrats control of both the U.S. House and the Senate. Pundits will spend the week arguing about what it means, and the loudest answers will come from the extremes of both parties. Voters have been saying something simpler all year: they want to afford their lives.
In October, 84 percent of surveyed voters told AP-NORC that the cost of living was one of the most important issues in this election. Gas stayed at or above four dollars a gallon for nearly 180 days this year, according to CNN, and Pennsylvania drivers paid an average of about $4.67 a gallon in May, according to AAA East Central. By September, consumer prices were up 3.7 percent from a year earlier. No program in Washington made any of that better.
Free markets answer this problem better than any program Washington has tried. In a voluntary exchange, both sides walk away better off or the deal does not happen. Multiply that by millions of daily choices and you get an economy where businesses compete to give people more for less, and where one person’s success creates room for the next entrepreneur.
Some will read last night as a verdict on free enterprise, and the numbers say otherwise. According to Gallup, free enterprise, at 77 percent, and small business, at 95 percent, are both far more popular than socialism. Most Americans viewed neither party favorably this fall, according to NBC News. Voters went to the polls frustrated that the party they trusted in 2024 had not brought prices down, and few of them chose rent control, which shrinks the housing supply, or government-run health care.
Our volunteer canvassers saw the same thing at the door. This summer, AFP found that one in five reliable Republican base voters in key states were unmotivated to vote or considering a Democrat. When canvassers broke the socialist agenda down piece by piece and paired it with a credible plan to lower costs, that group shrank by half. Sadly, few Republican candidates made the case, and it showed.
The economy also looks rigged to a lot of Americans, and they have reason to think so. Policymakers keep putting a thumb on the scale for special interests at the expense of small businesses and people without the right connections. A free market offers no such favors, which is why the well-connected prefer subsidies and exemptions. The small manufacturer in Pittsburgh and the family-owned shop in Altoona answer to their customers, and no lobbyist makes their case in Washington.
Pennsylvania knows what permission-based economics costs. We are the second-largest natural gas producer in the country, yet the PennEast Pipeline won federal approval and was still canceled after years of legal battles and regulatory challenges. Entrepreneurs cannot plan around that kind of uncertainty, and Pennsylvania families pay for it in their energy bills.
The top-down alternative treats progress as a fixed pie and answers every problem with another mandate, whether that means dictating energy choices or slowing the pace of innovation. It starts from the premise that someone in a federal office knows better than the millions of people running their own businesses and households. According to Populace’s Aspirations Index, Americans still put equal treatment ahead of equal outcomes, and equal treatment is what a free market offers, with the same rules for everyone and a chance to earn your way.
Democrats now hold both chambers, and they ran on lowering costs. AFP will hold them to that promise, and dole out accountability when needed. Permitting reform must first, building on the SPEED and PERMIT Acts the House already passed, so Pennsylvania’s energy and infrastructure projects get approved faster and at lower cost. Clearing the federal red tape that keeps new homes from getting built should follow, along with a personal option in health care that puts families in charge of their coverage, and a federal REINS Act to build on the 22 rules already repealed.
The factories that built Pennsylvania’s middle class and the energy revolution that transformed our commonwealth came from people free to take a risk and keep the reward. Over the next two years, AFP’s grassroots network will be in Pennsylvania’s districts making that case to lawmakers.
Head to AmericansForProsperity.org to learn more and to join us.
This is Emily Brey, State Director with Americans for Prosperity–Pennsylvania.