American Thinker

by Robert Weissberg

    “Affordability” is today’s hot issue. Though President Trump has addressed it, Democrats are in the forefront of ending this “crisis,” and central to their mission is greater government intervention. According to House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, when his party gains control of the House, they will begin by creating working groups to lower the cost of housing, gas and utilities, groceries, caregiving, and health care. The party slogan is "never let a crisis go to waste," and Democrats see “affordability” as one more opportunity to expand state power.

    To appreciate this foolishness of government-imposed affordability, consider how the federal government during WW II attempted to curtail inflation resulting from wartime shortages of consumer goods and soaring wages.

    On August 28, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order created the Office of Price Administration (OPA) that fixed prices for automobiles, tires, shoes, fuel oil, meats, coffee, and processed food, and when war began, the OPA also set rents. Eventually, 90% of food prices were government-determined. All restaurants displayed signs listing government-dictated prices for each menu item while nearly all consumer goods were strictly rationed.

    But as the war wound down, opposition to the OPA grew, and in 1947 it shut down, though some rules briefly continued under other agencies. Predictably, consumer prices increased, generally about 6%.

Might the OPA serve as Democrats’ template for our “affordability crisis”  Leaving aside whether draconian wartime measures would be tolerated today, attempting to revive OPA-like controls would face immense practical problems. Imagine setting the price of every pizza in every pizza parlor nationwide  Dozens of rules regarding size, toppings, take-out vs. sit-down, deep dish vs, thin crust and ingredient quality plus penalties for violations while hiring armies of inspectors to monitor compliance. But this would be a snap compared to setting rents for the 1,161, 615 current real estate listings in the country, all of which reflect local conditions and market forces. Moreover, this price setting would be done by government functionaries unfamiliar with the business they were regulating,

    Did these wartime regulations bring “affordability”  Hardly. People had money and were frequently happy to skirt the restrictions via the “Black Market” to satisfy their needs despite government exhortations to comply. Criminal gangs illegally sold gasoline (2.5 million gallons a day) and oil as they once marketed bootleg liquor. Entrepreneurs bought cattle, had them slaughtered (often under unsanitary conditions), and illegally sold the meat. It was estimated that 20% of all meat was purchased in this way, often with local butchers cooperating. At wholesale, 90% of all meat sold exceeded the officially set prices. According to the NY Times, the annual black market for food during this period was about $1.2 billion (in 1944 dollars, $22.8 billion in 2026 dollars), and 70% of New Yorkers occasionally participated, with one-third using it regularly. One in fifteen businesses ran afoul of the OPA, and many Mom-and-Pop shops were undoubtedly never caught.

    Gaming the system was endemic. People gladly paid a little extra rather than skimp. As a youngster, I accompanied my father to the local OPA office where he negotiated rent increases for his rental properties by explaining that he enhanced value by adding some furniture. These claims were undoubtedly real, but who could say if a cheap table or two justified a rent increase  Given the horrific housing shortage, tenants ignored minor skullduggery.

    Every businessperson knows that price is only one factor in consumer choice. There is convenience, selection, prestige, service, and personal relationships. Why would a customer pay between $10, 000 and $39,000 for a genuine Hermes Birkin handbag when Amazon sells realistic knockoffs for $30  Government-mandated “affordability” does not alter human nature, and if people crave outrageously priced handbags to enhance their social status, they will discover “greedy” sellers regardless of government restrictions.

    A totalitarian element also infuses these price controls. Why should government limit consumer choice under the guise of “affordability” versus providing consumers with the widest possible range of options  Nor, for that matter, should government dictate what manufacturers can sell. The United States is not the old Soviet Union where government-run construction companies could only build “affordable” depressingly ugly apartments.

    Yes, the OPA did keep prices lower, but it was not sustainable as incomes rose. It functioned only during a limited wartime emergency and even then, cheating was rampant. It also required armies of bureaucrats enforcing often Byzantine rules, and when this experiment in government-run pricing ended, America’s economy thrived. People now had cash and could afford better housing, new cars, better clothing, and otherwise live more comfortably thanks to private enterprise. This is a message worth remembering.

    Fortunately, there is a solution to this “affordability crisis” that does not require costly, odious OPA-like intervention. It’s called “free enterprise” and rests on the economic principle that huge fortunes can be made by supplying millions of customers with inexpensive items of reasonable quality. So, rather than city-run low-cost grocery stores as proposed by NYC’s Mayor Mamdani, encourage Walmart to open stores (Walmart currently has no NYC stores). In fact, according to one estimate, having Walmart stores would reduce grocery prices for New Yorkers by 30%, with zero city investment or administrative overhead.

    The super-wealthy have long been in the forefront of providing affordability -- “the Henry Ford Principle” making a fortune by helping Americans enjoy the good life. Post-WW II, the builder William J. Levitt helped solve that “affordable housing crisis” by quickly building some 17,000 private homes that initially sold for $7,900, and 84,000 people became homeowners while Levitt earned millions. Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, was worth $600 million (nearly $2 billion in 2026 dollars) when he died in 1984. The recent Forbes list of America’s richest people confirms this reality. The list is notable for the preponderance of those whose billions flowed from satisfying popular tastes affordably. For example, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is the second-richest person, while Michael Dell (who revolutionized the home computer industry) is number four. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, both of whom earned billions by selling reasonably priced software to millions, also made the list. Three of the top 15 are Walton family members, owners of Walmart. So if you want affordability, capitalism far outshines government mandates.

    Affordability per se is probably not what energizes Bernie Sanders and his followers. The deeper lure is socialism’s government-run economy on the installment plan. When offered measures that would genuinely reduce prices, it is rejected. As fellow socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it, “Walmart's entry would be disastrous for New Yorkers.” AOC had previously helped stop Amazon from building a facility in her congressional district that would have provided as many as 40,000 jobs. Punishing billionaires (oligarchs) outranks affordability.

    Socialists despise oligarchs more than they love economically struggling Walmart shoppers. After all, prosperity means shrinking the proletariat, and how can Socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC survive without a proletariat  If acquiring power is the goal, it is better to keep people poor and angry.