Currently, housing prices in Florida are in the midst of a crisis, a combination of rocketing home insurance rates and overwhelming demand from those looking to move in from out of state. Healthcare continues to create a massive and growing burden, with some $130 Billion in state spending in 2022. And while overall inflation seems to have tempered from its summer peaks, complex supply chains and international instability mean that another product price spike could be just around the corner.
Perhaps no issue is more consistently vital to our national outlook than our ability to afford the things we need. But while both our major parties are happy to stoke fear around the issue and blame the Other Side, they offer little in the way of real solutions. What few are willing to admit is just how difficult these problems are to solve - so many complicated factors drive prices, including some of the subsidies and artificial reductions meant to make things more affordable.
If we're going to actually work to ensure that housing, healthcare, and essential goods are affordable - and continue to be affordable - for ordinary Floridians, then we're going to have to look at the data. We're going to have to consider the incentives that drive businesses, and the ways different government interventions affect them. And we're going to have to work together and plan ahead, to build the effective, practical long-term policy that our current politicians can't.