A bipartisan group of 45 House lawmakers is proposing a menu of policies they argue could lower the cost of living for Americans, as both parties seek to show they’re working to bring down prices before the midterm elections this fall.
The moderate Problem Solvers Caucus’s “affordability agenda” includes dozens of policy proposals to speed up permitting processes for energy projects, increasing housing stock, expanding access to child care and easing health care costs — including replacing the enhanced premium tax credits for health care plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace that expired at the end of last year.
The measures may not get much traction in the deeply partisan Congress, as Republican and Democratic leaders alike make the case that their party is the one that voters can trust to bring down the cost of living.
But Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) and Tom Suozzi (D-New York), co-chairs of the Problem Solvers Caucus, argue that the affordability agenda will show their colleagues that reducing costs should be Congress’s top priority.
“In the House [an election] is always around the corner. We can’t let that stop us from doing our job,” Fitzpatrick said. “We refuse to play this Hatfield versus McCoy game, this red versus blue saber-rattling nonsense. That’s what is frustrating people.”
Prices have remained stubbornly high throughout the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. Prices in December were 2.7 percent higher than they were a year before, and core inflation remained relatively steady.
A New York Times-Siena poll conducted in January found voters ranked the economy as the nation’s top problem. Another January poll from Fox News found voters believe the economy and inflation should be Trump’s top priorities.
It’s become a key political issue for the White House and for congressional Republicans, who have argued the GOP tax and spending law passed last year will soon relieve economic burdens for much of the country’s middle- and lower-income Americans through new tax breaks on tips and overtime.
Democrats, too, have argued that they would bring down the cost of living if they were given the reins in Washington from health care to housing and taxes.
The Problem Solvers Caucus argues the affordability crisis is fueled by inadequate domestic energy supplies, a ballooning national debt, rising health care costs “and a broken immigration system.”
Among their proposals are tax-advantaged savings accounts for medical expenses; new grants for health care worker training programs; more transparency in the prescription drug supply chain; expanding a low-income housing tax credit; a reduction in the capital gains tax; a carve-out for housing permitting and electronic permitting for energy projects; grants for child care facilities; and an increase in the employer-sponsored child care tax credit.
“Everybody in the country thinks that in return for working hard, you should make enough money so you can buy a house and educate your kids and have health insurance and retire one day without being scared,” Suozzi said.
Suozzi and Fitzpatrick said they have shared their agenda with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and with the White House, who Fitzpatrick said are “happy we’re working on it” but will need additional details before they support the proposal.
The group also said it’s necessary to “address the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits” that expired at the end of last year by strengthening penalties for fraudulent enrollment and improper benefit claims, and by fixing “the key drivers of rising premiums,” which Fitzpatrick said they are studying with a new health care working group.
“There’s a lot to unpack there, but I think one thing we can all agree on … when you turn something like health care into a profit motivated business, it doesn’t work,” he said.
The House advanced a three-year extension of the tax credits last month by forcing a vote through a discharge petition supported by House Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans. The Senate has not taken up the proposal after it rejected a similar measure last year. The end of the tax credits forced up health care costs for millions of Americans who buy health insurance on the ACA marketplace.
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