As Americans continue to feel the squeeze from high housing, food and energy costs, affordability has emerged as a defining issue ahead of November's midterm elections, with both parties under pressure to show voters they can bring down the cost of living. A new report from the conservative group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence is now offering its own prescription, laying out 10 proposals aimed at lowering costs by cutting red tape and boosting production across the economy.

"Yes, there's an unaffordability crisis, and it's the government's fault," Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom (AAF), told Fox News Digital.

That argument is at the heart of the report, "10 Ways to Improve Affordability Now Across 10 Levels of the Economy," which calls affordability the "No. 1 issue facing the American people" and targets costs associated with housing, energy and business, among others. Advancing American Freedom, which Pence founded in 2021 after leaving office, has served as his primary vehicle for promoting the policies of the Trump-Pence administration.

The report's proposals range from easing zoning restrictions and expanding oil and gas access to overhauling Social Security and SNAP eligibility, mirroring parts of President Donald Trump's second-term agenda. Social Security in particular has returned to the center of fiscal debates, with program trustees projecting its combined trust funds will be depleted in the mid-2030s absent congressional action. But the conservative blueprint breaks with Trump on two key pocketbook issues: tariffs and credit card interest rates. On the latter, Trump has floated capping credit card interest rates at around 10%.

On trade, the report argues that Trump's sweeping tariffs have come at a cost to American consumers and the broader economy, raising prices, straining U.S. alliances and resulting in nearly 900,000 fewer jobs than expected. The authors at AAF call for shifting more tariff authority back to Congress, where the Constitution originally vested the power to levy duties and where some lawmakers in both parties have pushed legislation that would require congressional approval of new tariffs.

Even so, while the report paints a bleak picture of the tariffs' broader economic impact, the duties have generated a windfall for Washington. In January alone, they totaled $30.4 billion, up about 242% from $8.9 billion a year earlier, according to Treasury data.

On housing, the report blames zoning restrictions for pushing families farther from jobs and making homeownership harder for younger Americans. Those costs can be substantial: the National Association of Home Builders estimates that government regulations account for about 26% of the price of a new single-family home. Loosening single-family zoning rules has drawn support across party lines in recent years, with cities such as Minneapolis and states including California adopting reforms along those lines.

To address the problem, the report recommends limiting local zoning restrictions, streamlining approval for projects that meet existing rules and tying roughly $50 billion in annual federal housing aid to zoning reform.

On energy, the proposal calls for more oil and gas leasing and the rejection of state fracking bans. Stern argued that greater domestic production could lower costs throughout the economy because energy touches "every good we move, every service provided."

Stern also warned that economic frustration can turn Americans against one another, toward "viewing each other as the enemy, and that's what socialism is."

"I hope that people can take away from this that it's not businesses that are the problem," he said. "It's not entrepreneurs. It's not other Americans. It's government."

Source: Fox Business