Blue states are losing people. New York, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts have all seen population decline or stagnation over the last decade, and the trend is accelerating. People are leaving for Florida, Texas, and Tennessee — not because those states have better governments, but because they have cheaper housing.

This is not just an affordability problem. It is a political crisis. Congressional reapportionment is based on population, and if blue states keep hemorrhaging residents through the 2020s, the 2030 census will hand Republicans a structural advantage in the House that Democrats may not be able to overcome for a decade. California already lost a congressional seat after the 2020 census. New York nearly lost two. If current trends continue, the next round will be worse.

The root cause is not hard to identify. Many local governments in blue states have development laws that make it damn near impossible to build anything. State Democrats have the power to fix this. Most blue states have trifectas. They have the governor’s office, the state senate, and the state house. There is no Republican blocking these reforms.

The only thing standing in the way is the political will to take on the powerful interest groups that have benefited from keeping housing scarce. This needs to be done. Here are 7 ways it can be.

1. Legalize Missing Middle Housing Statewide

• Legalize medium-density multifamily housing by right in all residential zones

• Legalize townhomes by right in all residential zones

• Legalize accessory dwelling units by right on any residential lot, with no owner-occupancy requirement

Single-family zoning is the original sin of American housing policy. Across many blue states, it is still illegal to build a townhome, ADU (granny flat), duplex, triplex, or small apartment building on the vast majority of residential land.

Legalizing missing middle housing means allowing medium-density multifamily by right in every residential zone in the state. No special permits. No local vetoes. No discretionary review. If the lot is residential, you can build it.

This is the single most powerful thing a state can do to increase housing supply. Every unit of missing middle housing that gets built is one fewer family priced out of the neighborhood.

2. Legalize Mixed Use Development Statewide

• Convert all retail and office commercial zones to mixed-use residential and commercial zones

• Allow adaptive reuse of office and retail buildings for residential use by right, without requiring a full rezoning

It should be legal to build an apartment above a store anywhere in America. In most blue states, it isn’t, because retail and office commercial zones prohibit residential uses entirely.

Converting all retail and office commercial zones to mixed-use by right opens up enormous amounts of land for housing without touching a single residential neighborhood. Main streets, strip malls, and dead office parks — all of it becomes fair game for the housing that people actually need.

There are many other benefits, too. Mixed-use areas provide easy access to amenities for those who live in them. They also allow people to cut their commute by living within walking distance from where they work, thereby also reducing street traffic.

3. Lower Housing Production Costs

• Reform building codes to allow single-stair construction in multifamily buildings

• Legalize manufactured housing that meets HUD standards in all residential zones

It costs too much to build in America, and a significant chunk of that cost is unnecessary. Two reforms can bring it down fast.

Current building codes in most states require two stairwells in any multifamily building over a certain height. Europe has allowed single-stair construction for decades with a strong safety record. Allowing single-stair design unlocks building configurations that are cheaper to build, more efficient to use, and actually better for residents. It is one of the most impactful and least talked-about housing reforms available.

Modern manufactured homes built to HUD standards are safe, durable, and significantly cheaper to produce than site-built homes. Most residential zones still prohibit them through aesthetic requirements designed to keep out lower-income residents. Requiring all residential zones to permit HUD-standard manufactured housing puts homeownership back within reach for people who have been shut out for a generation.

4. Tear Down Permitting Barriers

• Cap permitting fees at a level that reflects actual administrative costs

• Cap permitting wait times with automatic approval if the government misses the deadline

Even when housing is technically legal to build, local governments can kill it through the permitting process. Fees pile up. Applications sit for months. Approvals get delayed indefinitely with no accountability.

States need to cap permitting fees at a level that reflects actual administrative costs, not a revenue stream for local government. And they need to set hard deadlines for permit approvals, with automatic approval if the government misses the deadline. If a city wants the housing, it will process the permits. If it doesn’t process the permits, the housing gets built anyway.

5. Ban Impact Fees on Housing

• Ban impact fees on all new housing development statewide

Impact fees are charges that local governments impose on new housing developments to fund infrastructure. In theory, developers pay for the roads and schools their projects create demand for. In practice, impact fees have become a tool to price housing out of the market and protect wealthy homeowners from new neighbors.

In many California jurisdictions, impact fees add $50,000 to $100,000 to the cost of a single unit. That cost does not disappear. It gets passed on to renters and buyers. Blue states should ban impact fees on housing entirely and fund infrastructure through broad-based taxation instead.

6. Stop Frivolous Litigation from Blocking Housing

• Reform standing requirements so only parties with direct, genuine harm can challenge housing projects in court

In most states, virtually anyone can sue to block a housing project on environmental or procedural grounds. You do not need to own property near the project. You do not need to demonstrate actual harm. You just need a lawyer and enough money to drag the process out until the developer gives up.

States should reform standing requirements so that only people with a genuine, direct stake in a project can challenge it in court. Projects that comply with state housing law should not spend years in litigation before a single unit gets built.

7. Enforce the Law

• Create a state housing appeals board where developers can challenge local denials that violate state housing law, with real enforcement teeth

None of the above matters if local governments can ignore state housing law without consequence.

Blue states need a state housing appeals board with real teeth. When a local government denies a housing project that complies with state law, developers need a fast, low-cost way to challenge that denial and win. Not a years-long court battle. A state administrative process with clear timelines, binding decisions, and penalties for local governments that repeatedly violate state housing mandates.

California has spent years passing housing laws that cities quietly ignore. The lesson is clear: transparency without enforcement is just paperwork. If blue states are serious about the housing crisis, they have to be serious about making sure their own laws get followed.

The housing crisis is not a mystery. We know why housing is expensive. We built a system of laws designed to make it expensive, and the people who benefit from high home prices have fought to keep that system in place. Democrats have the power in blue states to dismantle it. The only question is whether they will.

Some Democratic Governors have taken the lead on this. Including JB Pritzker recently with his bold new BUILD agenda. We need more Governors, and just as importantly, state legislatures to follow suit.

Our democracy hangs in the balance.

Republicans have spent the last few months telling Virginians that Democrats are turning the Commonwealth into a radical communist dystopia.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Notice something about all these tweets? They never actually cite anything specific that Democrats have actually done. Just vague statements or outright lies, like the 50+ taxes claim. Not a single tax hike has been signed into law.

Here is why. When you look at what Virginia Democrats have done in just a few months of unified government, the right-wing hysteria is shown to be ridiculous pretty quickly.

So let’s look at what actually happened.

Workers finally got a raise.

Virginia’s minimum wage has been stuck in a losing battle with inflation for years. Republicans blocked a $15 floor twice under Youngkin. This session, Democrats passed SB1, raising the wage from $12.77 to $15 an hour by 2028. It’s done.

But that’s only part of the worker story. HB5 guarantees paid sick leave for every Virginia worker, one hour earned for every 30 worked. Not just full-time employees. Everyone. The nurse’s aide, the restaurant worker, the warehouse employee. No more going to work sick because missing a shift means missing rent. No more losing your job because your kid had a fever.

And then there is SB2, which is the one that matters most to me personally. Paid family and medical leave. Up to 12 weeks at 80% of wages when a worker has a baby, loses a parent, or faces a serious illness. Youngkin vetoed this bill twice. Spanberger has committed to signing it. When she does, Virginia will become the 14th state in the country to guarantee this right. The other 13 states haven’t collapsed. Their workers have just had a little more security when life gets hard.

They went after the people skimming your prescriptions.

There are many reasons healthcare is so expensive in this country, and pharmacy benefit managers are one of them. PBMs sit between your insurer and your pharmacy, negotiating discounts and keeping a cut that never makes it to the patient. This is why you hand over a prescription, and the price is somehow higher than last month, with no explanation. SB669 ended that, requiring PBMs to pass their negotiated savings on to patients. It passed unanimously, which tells you something. Even Republicans couldn’t defend the status quo on this one.

SB405 addressed Virginia’s healthcare workforce shortage, which has been quietly driving up wait times and costs for years. More providers mean more access, which means lower prices.

HB60 protected access to preventive care. This matters because a $200 annual checkup that catches something early is dramatically cheaper than the emergency care that follows from catching it late.

Housing got a little less ridiculous.

SB628 expanded the Virginia Eviction Reduction Program, getting evidence-based crisis assistance to people teetering on the edge of losing their homes. The research on eviction prevention is consistent: keeping people housed is cheaper than the cascade of costs that follows an eviction, for individuals and for governments alike.

HB655 and SB346 legalized manufactured homes anywhere single-family homes are permitted statewide. Local zoning had been blocking this for years, keeping one of the most affordable paths to homeownership off the table for people who need it most. That changed.

Spanberger also signed EO-3 on her first day, directing the state government to cut red tape on housing supply. More YIMBY bills are coming before April 13 that advocates, including myself, are very optimistic she will sign.

They invested in the grid and the future.

America’s transmission infrastructure is decades behind where it needs to be, and building more of it is one of the most important things a state government can do right now. HB889 and SB497 streamlined permitting for new high-voltage transmission lines, cutting through the bureaucratic delays that have been slowing this build-out for years. That is a genuinely significant reform.

HB369 encouraged investment in cutting-edge energy technology, including nuclear fusion, passing with bipartisan support.

HB1191 and SB377 ensured that data centers, which consume staggering amounts of power, pay for the infrastructure upgrades their operations require rather than passing those costs to ordinary ratepayers.

HB1225 and SB407 expanded EV charging access across the Commonwealth.

Beyond this, Spanberger is expected to sign Virginia back into RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which caps carbon emissions from power plants and generates revenue for clean energy investment. Youngkin pulled Virginia out in 2023 for reasons that were never particularly coherent. With the federal government having abandoned any serious climate leadership, state coalitions like this one are more important than ever. Virginia is about to go back in.

They did the most common-sense thing imaginable.

HB1180 created a free tax filing program for all Virginians. You should not have to pay a private company to comply with a legal obligation. The fact that Americans have been doing this for decades, while most of the developed world offers it for free, is a policy failure. Virginia just fixed it for its residents. It is honestly baffling that this took so long.

They took school safety seriously.

Mass shootings have become a defining feature of American life in a way that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Spanberger signed a package of bills that take the threat seriously without waiting for federal action that is never coming. Red flag law training means law enforcement actually knows how to use a tool that research consistently shows reduces gun deaths. Panic alarm systems mean a teacher can summon help in seconds rather than minutes, and in a shooting, those minutes are the difference between life and death. Mental health support for at-risk students and after-school programs address the upstream conditions that lead to violence in the first place. Prevention is cheaper than tragedy, and it works.

The ghost gun ban, SB323, is on her desk. Ghost guns are unserialized firearms specifically designed to pass through metal detectors and evade background checks. They have become the weapon of choice for people who cannot legally buy a gun. Making them a felony to manufacture or possess does not infringe on anyone’s right to own a legal firearm. It just closes a loophole that never should have existed. She is expected to sign it.

They ended a policy that made no sense.

Until now, Virginians could legally possess cannabis but not buy it legally, which mostly meant they bought it illegally, with no testing, no regulation, and no tax revenue. HB642 fixes this, creating a licensed retail market starting in 2027 with testing requirements, public standards, and safety rules. Youngkin vetoed this. Spanberger has pledged to sign it. The black market will have some competition, and the state will have a new revenue stream.

In just a few months, with hundreds of bills still awaiting her signature, Virginia Democrats have delivered more concrete wins for working people than the state has seen in years. Wages up. Paid leave guaranteed. Drug costs down. Housing supply increasing. The grid being built for the future. Tax filing becoming free. School safety strengthened. The government has become a little more functional.

Republicans told you we were getting radical chaos. What we are actually getting is bipartisan competence. As usual, they are wrong.

This is what governing looks like when it works.

This is the Virginia Miracle.

Virginia Democrats just had one of the most productive legislative sessions in years. With a historic trifecta, the largest House majority in nearly four decades, a Senate majority, and Governor Abigail Spanberger in the Executive Mansion, they came to Richmond with a mandate: make Virginia more affordable for working families.

And they made real progress. Spanberger has signed legislation reining in pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen who inflate prescription drug prices. Manufactured homes can now be built in more places. High energy users like data centers must now pay for their own infrastructure, shielding ratepayers from those costs. And a free state tax filing program, passed unanimously, means working Virginians no longer have to pay a private company just to file their taxes.

That’s a genuine start. But let’s be honest, it’s only a start. The affordability crisis in Virginia runs deep, and what’s been signed so far has only scratched the surface of what’s possible. Here are 20 proven ideas that would do exactly that.

HOUSING

Rising housing costs are the single biggest driver of financial stress for Virginia families. The diagnosis is simple: we don’t have enough homes. Building more housing, in more places, faster, is the most powerful lever Democrats have, and it doesn’t require a massive government spending program. It requires rolling back the local rules that are currently making affordable development impossible.

1. Reduce minimum lot sizes statewide.

Zoning rules that require large minimum lot sizes artificially restrict how much housing can be built on available land. A developer who wants to build three modest homes on a lot zoned for one simply cannot, not because of economic forces, but because of a government rule.

In some localities, the minimum lot size requirements are truly astounding. In Prince William County’s agricultural zone, the minimum lot size is 10 acres, over 400,000 square feet. For reference, the footprint of a typical townhome is often just 1,400 square feet.

That is not a market outcome. It is a government-imposed ban on affordable housing. And we should be honest about why these rules exist. They are not about safety. They are not about infrastructure. In many cases, they exist because existing homeowners and local officials want to keep housing scarce and expensive. They want to protect their property values. They want to keep working-class people out. That is the uncomfortable truth that too many politicians are afraid to say out loud.

Virginia Democrats should say it. And then they should do something about it.

Virginia should make it illegal for any locality to ban townhomes, capping the minimum lot size any locality can impose at 1,400 square feet. If a locality is using land use laws to price working families out of their community, the state has not just the power but the obligation to stop them.

2. Eliminate parking mandates.

Requiring developers to build a minimum number of parking spaces adds tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of every new unit. The cost of structured parking alone can run $30,000 to $50,000 per space, costs that get passed directly to renters and buyers. The mandates local governments are imposing are often completely arbitrary, inflating costs for no reason.

Furthermore, in walkable, transit-accessible areas, these mandates are especially absurd. Businesses already have an incentive to build parking for their customer. Imposing arbitrary parking mandates only raises costs and makes off-lot parking solutions (like pooled parking) illegal. The state should step in to end parking mandates, or, at a minimum, reduce them.

3. Legalize ADUs and multiplexes by right.

Accessory dwelling units, a basement apartment, a garage conversion, a backyard cottage, and small multifamily buildings should be legal to build everywhere in Virginia without requiring special permits, board hearings, or neighborhood approval. This is one of the fastest, least disruptive ways to add housing supply in existing neighborhoods. Homeowners get flexibility. Renters get more options. Everyone wins except the big landlords who benefit from artificial scarcity.

4. Limit standing in lawsuits against zoning changes.

This is the silent veto that almost no one talks about. Even when cities and states legalize more housing on paper, organized interest groups (usually wealthy homeowners) sue to block the changes and/or sue to stop individual projects. This drags out approvals for years and kills development even when the city supports it. Developers price in that legal risk, which raises costs, or they simply don’t build. Raising the standing threshold so plaintiffs must show concrete harm, not just “I don’t want this near me,” shortening the statute of limitations on zoning challenges, and requiring plaintiffs to post a bond would protect legitimate pro-housing reforms supported by local communities from being vetoed by wealthy, organized special interests.

5. Cap building permit fees.

In parts of Northern Virginia, permit fees and local charges add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building a single home. These costs get passed directly to buyers and renters. They are effectively a government tax on housing construction, and they fall hardest on the most affordable end of the market, where margins are thinnest, and developers are most price-sensitive. Capping them statewide puts direct downward pressure on the cost of building homes.

TAX REFORM

6. Implement a split-rate property tax.

A split-rate property tax taxes land at a higher rate than the buildings on it. The logic is straightforward: taxing land value discourages speculation and landbanking, i.e., holding underbuilt or vacant property in high-demand areas while waiting for values to rise. Taxing buildings less encourages development and improvement. If you are a wealthy investor who owns a surface parking lot in the middle of a thriving neighborhood, your tax bill goes up, which creates real pressure to build something useful. Regular homeowners who actually use their land come out ahead. Renters and new buyers benefit from lower rents and lower housing prices. It is a pro-development, anti-speculation reform that doesn’t require a single dollar of new spending.

7. Eliminate the car tax in exchange for a higher land tax.

Virginia’s personal property tax on vehicles is one of the most unpopular taxes in the Commonwealth, and one of the most regressive. It hits working and middle-class families who depend on their cars to get to work the hardest, while wealthier Virginians who can afford to live close to transit feel it least. Replacing it with a higher land value tax shifts the burden from working people onto land bankers and wealthier property owners. The working class and middle class will come out way ahead from this trade, and Virginia will no longer have to maintain its complex vehicle property tax assessment scheme.

HEALTHCARE

Healthcare costs are squeezing Virginia families from every direction, at the pharmacy, in the hospital, and on their insurance bills. The common thread in each of the following proposals is the same: more competition, more transparency, more supply.

8. Allow full independent practice rights for nurses.

Virginia requires nurses to practice under physician supervision even when they are fully qualified to treat patients independently. The result is a government-enforced bottleneck that restricts the supply of care, particularly in rural parts of the state where physician shortages are most severe. Removing that restriction expands access, increases competition, and drives down costs. It is one of the clearest examples of occupational regulation that protects incumbents rather than patients.

9. Open accelerated medical school pathways.

The physician shortage is fundamentally a supply problem, and supply problems have supply solutions. Accelerated three-year MD programs, already piloted in states across the country, can increase the number of practicing physicians faster without reducing the quality of care. More doctors mean more competition. More competition means lower prices. This is not complicated.

10. Create a Virginia Centralized Health Insurance Claims Clearinghouse.

Every health insurance claim filed in Virginia is a bureaucratic obstacle course. A doctor submits a claim. The insurer reviews it under its own proprietary system. The claim bounces through multiple clearinghouses. The whole process takes four to six weeks and costs between $12 and $19 per claim. That waste is not free. It gets baked into your premiums, your copays, and your care.

We already solved this problem in banking. It does not matter that your employer banks at Wells Fargo and you bank at a credit union. Your paycheck arrives instantly because all banks use the same standardized clearinghouse. The cost of running that entire system is roughly $300 million annually, for more than $50 trillion in transfers.

Virginia should build the health insurance equivalent. Require every insurer in the Commonwealth to submit, process, and pay claims through one standardized system. Insurers still compete on price and coverage. The government just runs the pipes. McKinsey estimates a centralized claims clearinghouse could cut healthcare administrative spending by 10 to 12 percent. In Virginia, that is billions of dollars that could flow back to patients and lower premiums instead of disappearing into bureaucratic overhead.

11. Eliminate Virginia’s Certificate of Need law.

This may be the single most important healthcare cost reform on this list. Virginia’s Certificate of Need law requires hospitals and healthcare providers to get government approval before adding new services, hospital beds, or medical facilities. It was designed to prevent overbuilding, but in practice, it functions as an incumbent protection racket. Existing hospitals use the CON process to block competitors from entering their markets, suppressing supply and keeping prices artificially high. Eliminating it would open healthcare markets to real competition for the first time in decades. Several states, including some deep red ones, have already done it. Virginia should, too.

CONSUMER PROTECTION

12. Comprehensive junk fee ban and all-in pricing law.

Here is a simple principle that Virginia should put into law: if a fee applies to every single customer, it is part of the price. Period. It must be included in the advertised price, online, in print, at the point of first display, everywhere.

The list of fees this would eliminate is long and familiar. Resort fees and destination fees tacked onto hotel bills. Service fees and order processing fees added at the last step of buying a concert ticket. Apartment admin fees and lease initiation fees charged to every tenant. Telecom regulatory recovery fees buried in the fine print of your phone bill. Healthcare facility fees charged for routine outpatient visits that have nothing to do with the care you received.

These fees exist for one reason: to make the price look lower than it is. They are a form of consumer fraud that has been normalized by the industry. Virginia should follow the lead of other states and make them illegal.

13. Require interchange competition on credit card transactions.

Every time a consumer swipes a card, the merchant pays a fee, typically 2 to 3 percent, to the card network and issuing bank. Those fees are built into the prices of everything you buy, whether you pay with cash, card, or anything else. Small businesses pay them and have no choice but to pass them on.

The problem is not the existence of any fee. It is the lack of competition that allows the fee to be so high. Visa and Mastercard dominate the market and set fee schedules with little competitive pressure. Requiring card networks to offer merchants a choice of at least two unaffiliated routing networks, the model behind the federal Credit Card Competition Act, lets the market drive fees down. It is not a price cap. It is a competition mandate. And it would put real money back in the pockets of consumers and small business owners across Virginia.

14. Allow direct sale of cars.

Virginia law requires automakers to sell vehicles through franchised dealerships. This is not a market outcome; it is a government mandate that protects a middleman industry from competition. Consumers pay for it in the form of higher prices and a worse buying experience. Allowing manufacturers to sell directly to consumers, as Tesla and others have gotten permission to do in select states, introduces genuine competition into the car market and drives prices down. There is no consumer protection rationale for this restriction. It exists because dealers lobbied for it. That is not a good enough reason to keep it.

BUSINESS CLIMATE

15. Eliminate all Virginia corporate welfare, redirect the savings to business courts, and reduce business fees.

Virginia hands out hundreds of millions of dollars in targeted tax breaks, subsidies, and exemptions to specific industries and corporations every year. The data center tax exemption alone costs the Commonwealth nearly two billion dollars in a single fiscal year. Some of these giveaways may have made sense when they were created. Most have never been seriously evaluated. All of them represent a choice to favor politically connected industries over ordinary Virginians and small businesses.

Democrats should end them, every single one, and use the savings to do two things. First, create dedicated Virginia business courts: specialized courts with judges who have commercial expertise, designed to resolve business disputes faster and more predictably. This is a genuine competitive advantage for attracting investment and costs a fraction of what we give away in corporate subsidies. Second, use remaining savings to reduce the fees and taxes that fall on every Virginia business, not just the ones with lobbyists. The way to help Virginia businesses is not to give more special giveaways to megacorporations. It is to reduce the real unnecessary burdens that negatively affect all businesses, large and small alike.

FOOD & EVERYDAY COSTS

16. Reform Virginia’s Cottage Food Laws.

Right now, Virginia law severely restricts what home-based food producers can sell, where they can sell it, and how much they can earn doing it. A home baker who wants to sell bread at a farmers market, a jam maker who wants to supply a local grocery store, or a small food entrepreneur trying to build a business from their kitchen runs into a wall of regulations that have nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with protecting incumbent commercial producers from competition.

Reforming cottage food laws means raising or eliminating the revenue cap on home food businesses, expanding the list of approved products, and allowing direct sales through more channels, including online and at retail locations. It lowers the barrier to entry for small food entrepreneurs, increases the supply of locally produced food, and creates more competition that puts downward pressure on food prices. States like Wyoming have gone nearly fully deregulated on cottage food and seen thriving local food economies as a result.

This is a reform that Democrats should own proudly. It empowers working people to build businesses from their own kitchens, creates economic opportunity with zero public spending, and makes food more affordable and more local at the same time.

EDUCATION & WORKFORCE

17. Universal dual credit — 50% enrollment by 2029.

Dual credit programs allow high school students to earn college credits before they graduate, at little or no cost. Every credit earned in high school is a credit that doesn’t have to be paid for in college. Setting a concrete statewide target, 50 percent of Virginia students enrolled in a meaningful number of dual credit courses by 2029, creates accountability and puts Virginia on a path to dramatically reducing the cost of a college degree for the next generation. States like Tennessee have pursued this aggressively and seen real reductions in student debt and time-to-degree.

18. Expand auto-articulation associate degree pathways.

Virginia’s community colleges charge a fraction of what four-year universities charge. But too often, students who complete an associate degree have to fight course by course to have those credits recognized when they transfer to a four-year institution. Strengthening Virginia’s automatic transfer and articulation agreements, so that community college credits stack seamlessly toward a bachelor’s degree, means a student can complete their first two years at community college rates and finish their degree at a four-year school. That cuts the cost of a bachelor’s degree nearly in half. It is one of the most powerful affordability tools available, and it requires no new spending.

19. Streamline occupational licensing.

Virginia requires licenses for dozens of occupations that other states regulate far less heavily or not at all. Every unnecessary licensing requirement is a barrier that keeps willing workers out of jobs and keeps prices high for consumers. A systematic review with a presumption toward eliminating licenses that don’t serve a genuine public safety purpose would expand workforce participation, reduce costs, and make Virginia more economically dynamic. This is not deregulation for its own sake. It is a recognition that the government should protect people, not protect incumbents.

FISCAL STRUCTURE

20. Create a Virginia Sovereign Wealth Fund and enshrine it in the Constitution.

This one is different from the rest. It is not about lowering a specific cost today. It is about building the long-term fiscal foundation that allows Virginia to lower costs and make pro-affordability investments for decades to come.

Here is the problem. When Virginia runs a budget surplus, that money tends to get fought over and spent on one-time giveaways, a tax rebate here, a line item there, with no lasting impact. It is the fiscal equivalent of spending a windfall instead of investing it. Other countries have done something smarter: they have created sovereign wealth funds that invest surplus revenue in the market, build wealth over time, and use the returns to fund public priorities without raising taxes.

Virginia should do the same. The mechanism is simple. Every surplus dollar goes first to fully topping off Virginia’s rainy day fund, already one of the best-managed in the country. Every dollar beyond that flows automatically into a new Virginia Sovereign Wealth Fund, invested in diversified index funds managed by an independent board modeled on the Virginia Retirement System. The fund never flows backward; it only receives, never pays out during downturns. That is what the rainy day fund is for.

Over time, the profits from this fund can be used to finance tax reductions and pro-affordability investments, without raising taxes or cutting services to pay for them.

Both the waterfall mechanism and the withdrawal restrictions should be enshrined in the Virginia Constitution, protected from any future legislature tempted to raid it for short-term political gain.

For too long, Virginia surpluses have been blown on one-time giveaways rather than long-term investments. It is time to change that, structurally and permanently.

Virginia Democrats came to Richmond this year with the most power they have had in a generation. They have already begun using it. But the mandate voters gave them in November was bigger than one session, bigger than one signing ceremony, bigger than any single bill.

The policies above represent a generational opportunity — to make Virginia the most affordable, most economically dynamic state on the East Coast. Not by accident. Not incrementally. But by design, with intention, and with the courage to go further than anyone has gone before.

The work has started. Now it needs to continue.

68% of American voters say they disliked both choices in the 2024 election. That number shocked no one. For decades, Americans have reported the same frustration. So the real question isn’t whether voters are unhappy. It’s how this keeps happening.

How is it that in a nation of 340 million people, we so rarely end up with candidates that most of us actually like? Why do our elections so often feel like a contest between the lesser of two evils, rather than a competition between the best available options? The answer lies upstream, in partisan primaries.

Under the current system, before the general election that everyone votes in, each party holds its own primary to decide who will represent it. These primaries effectively determine the choices available to voters in November. Yet only 20 to 25% of eligible voters participate in them. That small slice of the electorate is not representative of the public as a whole.

Primary voters tend to hold more extreme, ideological views than the broader population. As a result, the candidate most appealing to primary voters is often the least appealing to the general electorate. The consequences are predictable. Candidates are incentivized to represent not their district, but instead the small share of primary voters. This adverse incentive manifests in multiple ways.

First, partisan primaries tend to elevate hardline candidates who struggle with the general electorate. Recent examples include Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, Winsome Earle-Sears, all of whom won their primaries decisively, only to suffer clear losses in the general election. In each case, the race was winnable had the party nominated a more broadly appealing candidate.

Second, partisan primaries warp the behavior of candidates once in office. Elected officials are often forced to toe the party line and take positions that are unpopular with the broader public simply to avoid a primary challenge. Deviation from party orthodoxy is punished, even when it reflects the will of most voters.

A high-profile example is unfolding in Texas, where long-time Republican Senator John Cornyn now faces a serious primary challenge from Ken Paxton, a far more extreme Republican. In 2014, Cornyn opposed Ted Cruz’s move to shut down the government over Obamacare, and in 2022, he played a crucial role in the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a law aimed at preventing school shootings. Both positions were broadly popular with Texas voters. Yet those votes now threaten his political survival.

Cornyn is likely to lose to Paxton resoundingly in the primary, despite the fact that Paxton is far less popular with Texans, boasting only a 29% approval rating statewide. Future examples are likely coming in Indiana, where Republican state legislators who voted against Trump’s unpopular gerrymander push now risk defeat by Trump-endorsed primary challengers.

The pattern is unmistakable. Partisan primaries produce leaders who do not reflect the views of the public. They reward ideological purity over problem-solving and punish bipartisanship, even though bipartisan cooperation is essential in a country with divided government as often as ours. Instead of compromise, politicians are incentivized to engage in hyper-partisan posturing that generates attention but accomplishes little.

This institutional failure has consequences. Government policy swings wildly from administration to administration, rather than tracking public opinion, which makes far subtler, less extreme movements. Polarization only deepens as time goes on. And when neither party has a complete trifecta, policymaking comes to a stop.

Thankfully, the American people demand we cure this illness. Every poll in recent years has shown that most Americans don’t trust the government. In fact, an incredible 75% of Americans think that the government is actively working to favor itself and elites, not the country as a whole. Meanwhile, Americans in both parties actually agree on the government’s role and scope in many key issues. We find ourselves in a moment where the American people desperately want change, often agree on what that change needs to look like, but have no faith in the government as it stands today to enact that change. Radically altering our primary system is the best way to end this intolerable status quo.

So then, what would such a rethink of our primary system look like? The first step is to eliminate partisan primaries altogether and replace them with the all-party “jungle primaries” already employed in Alaska, California, and Washington. Under this system, every candidate for an office appears on the same primary ballot, regardless of party affiliation. Every voter participates in the same election. The top two, three, four, or five candidates then advance to the general election.

This reform directly addresses the core defect of partisan primaries: ideological gatekeeping by a small, unrepresentative electorate. Instead of appealing to the most partisan members of their own party, candidates must appeal to the electorate as a whole from the very beginning. The incentive structure shifts away from extremism and toward broad acceptability. Studies back this up and show reduced polarization, increased competition, and a greater likelihood that advancing candidates reflect the preferences of the median voter rather than party bases.

This sort of widespread reform of our primary system would not be unprecedented; after all, we have made big changes to our primaries before. Prior to the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, candidates were chosen by party elites in the “smoke-filled rooms.” Reformers pushed for an end to this undemocratic practice and began a march towards the present system. Gradually, the mid-20th century saw an expansion of primary elections across the country. It took a 1944 Supreme Court ruling to end white-only primaries in the South, and it was not until the 1970s that primaries existed in every state for presidential elections. So before anyone tries to tell you the primary system, as it stands, is some sacred and inviolable element of American democracy, remember that it’s barely 50 years old.

But all-party primaries alone are insufficient. In plurality voting elections, they suffer from a major flaw. Vote splitting. When multiple candidates appeal to similar constituencies, they can divide support and allow a less representative candidate to advance with only a small but cohesive base.

Consider California. Despite being overwhelmingly Democratic, there are scenarios where two Republicans could advance to the general election, simply because a crowded Democratic field splits the vote. A recent Emerson poll of the ongoing California gubernatorial race suggests this could even happen this year. Strategic withdrawals and tactical voting often prevent this outcome, but a well-designed democratic system should not rely on voter gamesmanship to avoid absurd results. That is why approval voting must accompany all-party primaries.

Under approval voting, voters may vote for as many candidates as they approve of. The top four or five most-approved candidates advance to the general election, and the most broadly approved candidate wins. Under an approval-voting, all-party system, the most popular candidate actually prevails. General elections are transformed from two-person lesser-of-two-evils contests into four or five-person greater-of-many-goods competitions. The political landscape would be fundamentally altered.

Demonizing the other side, currently an effective strategy, would become political suicide. Extreme positions that appeal to only 10 to 15% of voters would be abandoned in favor of policies that command broad agreement. The negative campaigns so popular at the moment would backfire, as attacking an opponent risks alienating voters who also approve of that candidate.

The politically optimal strategy would no longer be to please the primary electorate, but to reflect the actual views of constituents. The benefits go further. Third-party candidates and independents would finally have a viable path to victory if they could sway moderates. Long-entrenched incumbents in gerrymandered safe seats would face real competition. At present, over 85% of Congressional districts are uncompetitive; these reforms would help give voters a genuine choice.

The sickness at the heart of American politics, the polarization, the gridlock, the sense that nothing ever changes, is not an unsolvable cultural problem. It is an institutional one. And it can be fixed.

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We live today under a regime that was unimaginable a year ago. Universal tariffs, on every single country, on nearly all goods, at substantial, sometimes eye-popping rates.

Trade Psychosis

We’ve been made four incompatible pitches on why these tariffs are a good idea:

1. Tariffs will reshore America’s industrial base.

2. Tariffs will eliminate our trade deficit.

3. Tariffs are a bargaining chip to get fair trade deals.

4. Tariffs will raise enormous, consistent revenue that we can use to replace other revenue sources.

These justifications, which are often repeated one after the other in the same sequence, are hopelessly inconsistent—a theme in Trump’s trade policy.

If tariffs reshore America’s industrial base (1), we won’t be importing all that much, which means the revenue tariffs raise will be paltry (contradicting 4).

If tariffs are but a temporary bargaining chip for fairer deals (3), then they won’t lead to the insourcing of all supply chain nor will they raise long-term revenue (contradicting 1 and 4). And so on, and so forth.

Even taken individually, none of these arguments withstands scrutiny. If tariffs are about bringing back manufacturing, why are they also being imposed on imports that we simply cannot practically source in adequate quantities domestically? Think coffee beans, bananas, and many raw materials.

If they’re meant to eliminate our trade deficit, why target countries with which the United States already runs a surplus, such as Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom?

If they’re a tool to secure fair trade deals, why have so few been negotiated—and why punish allies like Switzerland, which already levies zero tariffs on 99.5% of American goods? And if tariffs are designed to raise revenue, why are they set at ever-changing, arbitrary levels rather than the long-term, revenue-maximizing rate?

Nothing makes sense. And no matter how many times the Administration insists on its own brilliance, there is no reconciling its claims with one another—or with observable reality.

But of all the contradictions, confusions, and petty falsehoods in this administration’s trade policy, none has been more pernicious, more cynical, or more contemptible than the lie that tariffs are not paid by Americans.

Mechanics of Deceit

Customs and Border Protection collects all tariffs from domestic “importers of record”—that is, American businesses registered with CBP to receive imported goods. These companies cannot retrieve their shipments from customs without first paying the tariff. In other words, it’s American firms—not foreign governments—that pay the bill.

Some sophisticated right-wing commentators have tried to skirt this basic reality by claiming that while U.S. companies technically pay tariffs, the costs are ultimately reimbursed by foreign exporters through lower prices or side payments. But the data tells a different story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Import Price Index, which tracks the base price of imported goods, has not fallen to offset the new tariffs. In fact, it has slightly risen. That means foreign exporters aren’t “eating” the cost—Americans are.

While a few firms have contracts requiring exporters to pay duties, these are the exception. Goldman Sachs estimates that only about 15% of recent tariff costs have been absorbed abroad. The rest are paid by U.S. importers and, ultimately, consumers. Studies from Yale, the Peterson Institute, and even the Federal Reserve all reach the same conclusion: tariffs are taxes, and nearly all of them fall on Americans.

And we are paying them dearly. The average effective tariff rate has surged from roughly 2% to over 18%, translating into tens of billions in new taxes on U.S. businesses every quarter. These costs cascade through the supply chain—first to manufacturers, then to retailers, and finally to consumers. Prices rise, competitiveness falls, and entire industries are left grappling with higher input costs that make producing in America less viable, not more.

Economic Malaise

The result of Trump’s tariff regime is an economy, once booming, that now can hardly be described as anything but “meh.” Inflation is up to 3%, continuing its upward trend since Liberation Day. Unemployment is rising. GDP growth’s annual rate has averaged out to 1.6% in Trump’s first two quarters, with nearly all of that growth attributed to the AI boom. The U.S. dollar is down roughly 10%. The national debt just surpassed $38 trillion on an unsustainable $2 trillion annual deficit. The trade deficit is, remarkably, up.

The numbers tell a simple story: America is paying more, investing less, and falling behind.

Unfortunately, it will only get worse. That is, unless the Administration tells the truth and ends this madness.

I won’t hold my breath.

This piece was co-written with . Check out his Substack, .

In all advanced nations other than the United States, the government makes an organized effort to control costs, achieve universal access, and promote quality.

They go about achieving this in different ways. There are broadly four different approaches: [1] Socialized Medicine, [2] Single Payer, [3] Managed Competition, and [4] Two Tier.

[1] Socialized Medicine

DESCRIPTION

• Insurance: Public

• Providers: Public / Mixed

In countries that have socialized medicine, both financing and delivery of healthcare are organized by the government. All citizens are guaranteed access to care at low or no cost, with the system funded by taxes.

Public hospitals receive a pre-determined, fixed annual budget rather than payment by insurance for services provided. This practice is often referred to as “global budgeting.”

In the purest forms of socialized medicine, like Cuba, clinics for primary and specialty care are also publicly run. Yet, in other countries that otherwise should be considered socialized medicine, independent primary care and specialist clinics exist and are incorporated within the public system.

Countries with socialized medicine vary in what level of government predominantly manages the system. In Scandinavia, healthcare provision is organized by municipal and regional governments. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the central government plays a much more pronounced role.

Duplicative insurance, i.e., insurance that provides coverage for the same thing the public system provides coverage for, is often restricted. Private supplemental coverage for things not covered by the public system, on the other hand, is usually permitted.

[2] Single Payer

DESCRIPTION

• Insurance: Public

• Providers: Private / Mixed

Single-payer systems feature insurance provided by the government, with usually a mixture of public and private providers. Funding for the insurance comes from taxes or employer and employee contributions. However, in a select few places, like the Canadian Provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, a small premium is charged.

The level of deductibles, copays, and coinsurance depends on the country. In Taiwan, copays and coinsurance are used liberally to cut down on use. In Hungary, there is little to no cost sharing, and the state opts to use care rationing when demand for care outstrips supply.

Not all countries I have classified as single-payer technically have a *single* payer. In some countries, like Austria, there are technically multiple insurance funds that people are assigned to based on variables like region, industry, and employment status. These funds do not compete with one another and are all managed by the state. They also provide the same coverage and operate based on the same reimbursement scheme. For these reasons, there is no practical reason to classify these systems as anything other than single-payer because they operate exactly the same way.

Similar to socialized medicine, duplicative insurance is often prohibited in countries with single-payer insurance, but supplemental and complementary insurance coverage is permitted and relatively common.

[3] Managed Competition

DESCRIPTION

• Insurance: Private

• Providers: Private / Mixed

The most market-oriented of all approaches to universal healthcare managed competition systems rely on a regulated competitive private insurance marketplace. Plans are required to cover a standard government-mandated package of services. Cost sharing is regulated if not completely standardized across plans.

Discrimination against those with preexisting conditions is strictly prohibited. Insurers are required to charge the same price to everyone (except age price discrimination, which is permitted in some places); this practice is referred to as “community rating.” Guaranteed issuance is enforced, meaning insurance companies are never permitted to reject someone who wishes to enroll in their plan.

Because insurers are no longer allowed to charge riskier patients more, a new problem is introduced. Some insurers have, on average, more expensive patients to cover than others, leading them to perform worse through no fault of their own.

To correct this problem, the government establishes risk rebalancing procedures. The most basic of these that all systems employ is called “risk adjustment.” Under risk adjustment, plans that have on-average, healthier patients are charged, and plans that have on-average, less healthy patients are subsidized.

Determinations of people’s health are made using an algorithm that takes into account people’s age, gender, and comorbidities, amongst other variables.

Shopping for insurance is made easier by all of them being available on a centralized marketplace that makes information on the differences between the plans easy to digest. Plans compete on what additional coverage they provide and, in some countries, their premiums and networks.

Cost sharing is common, and insurance plans are funded either by employer and employee contributions or traditional premiums with subsidies provided to those with lower incomes. Some countries have public options, which compete with private options in the insurance market. This is what happens in present-day Slovakia.

Providers consist of a mixture of public firms, for-profits, and non-profits. In some countries, reimbursement rates for providers are centrally negotiated, a process referred to as all-payer rate setting. In these systems, insurance networks do not exist.

In other countries, reimbursement rates are decentrally negotiated, and insurance networks remain.

[4] Two Tier

DESCRIPTION

• Insurance: Mixed

• Providers: Mixed

Two tier healthcare systems are those that feature both an expansive public system and a separate expansive private system. The public system is most commonly a form of socialized medicine, although occasionally, it can be closer to a single-payer or managed competition model. The private system is lightly regulated, with private insurers and providers mostly determining their own policies as they would in an unobstructed market.

To differing degrees, many countries that have socialized medicine, single payer, or managed competition have some extent of an additional private system. For instance, in Germany, 11% of the population receives their health insurance through one of the independent private insurers rather than a regulated sickness fund.

The delineation between non two tier systems and two tier systems is not always the clearest, but for our purposes, I have come up with two criteria:

1. The private system must be a comprehensive alternative to the public system. A private system that just consists of supplementary services to the public system or offers a replacement for some but not all of the public system's functions is insufficient.

2. The size and scope of the private system must be large enough to constitute a genuine option for the majority of the population.

Australia represents the quintessential example of a two tier system.

All Aussies are entitled to coverage under the national health insurance program Medicare. Medicare guarantees access to public primary, specialty, and hospital care, with very low levels of cost sharing.

But in addition to Medicare, as of 2023, 45% of Australians have non-supplemental private health insurance. This private insurance provides them access to an array of health services and commodities not available in the public system.

Two tier systems are often the result of political compromises. In Australia, the tug of war between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party has kept both the public system and the private system alive, with neither overtaking the other.

Both parties seem to have come to terms with its continued existence but with disagreements about what the proper role of each part is.

Labor thinks the public system should be more robust, and private insurance should remain mostly as a thing that only high-income Aussies feel the need to opt for. Meanwhile, the Liberals would say the public system should be limited to a safety net function, with the private system growing in size.

Two tier systems are also common in developing countries, where the government first established the underlying healthcare infrastructure, but as incomes have risen and urbanization has unfolded new private institutions have sprouted up.

As you can see, there are many ways a functional universal healthcare system can be achieved. Denmark, Taiwan, Switzerland, and Australia all have different systems, yet all of them are able to achieve universal access to quality care at an affordable cost to the public.

Despite this fact, these systems are not interchangeable. Each comes with pros and cons, and the appropriateness of any specific approach depends on the context.

I’ll be releasing a piece soon that explains my thoughts on this debate. For now, what are your thoughts? I’m curious to know! Leave your favorite approach and your case for it in the replies. I truly believe that this very critical part of the healthcare debate needs more attention.

People from all over the political spectrum need to know that there is a model of universal healthcare for them. From the market-oriented to the socialistic, there are many paths to the destination of universal healthcare. The question we should be asking ourselves is not whether we should pursue one of these paths but rather which one of these paths should we pursue.