The buzzword back in November's elections was "affordability."
To be sure, life is more expensive than it used to be, thanks to President Biden's autopen, but the same party that created the problem swore they could swoop in and save us from it.
And the electorate in places like Virginia and New York City bought it.
The Big Apple is feeling the pinch already, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proven to be in well over his head, but the Old Dominion state isn't immune to this, either.
There, Gov. Abigail Spanberger promised affordability, and her party submitted a ton of bills that were, ostensibly, about making life more affordable. So far, so good, right?
Well, let's not get carried away. After all, much like Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, none of the bills do what they claim to do.
That's not me talking, either, but local media.
Despite the naming of her "Affordable Virginia Agenda," which includes a number of bills, half of which have already passed one chamber or another in the state, an area television station took a look at the bills themselves, and apparently didn't like what they saw.
"7News read the bills and found that most of the bills highlighted in Spanberger's news release would do nothing to significantly lower costs or deliver quick relief to most Virginians," WJLA's Nick Minock wrote.
Shocker, right?
The truth of the matter is that the best thing government can do to reduce costs is to get out of the way of the free market. Unfortunately, Democrats seem to recoil from the thought like a vampire from a cross. Their entire reason for being is to increase government control, which doesn't make anything cheaper. In fact, it generally makes things worse.
For example, making things harder on landlords doesn't increase housing for anyone. If anything, it drives people to look at other investments beyond residential housing. Why would I want to build an apartment complex when I know that any deadbeat can move in, refuse to pay rent, and then I have to jump through every possible hoop just to kick them out, only to then have to fix up the apartment they likely trashed, only to go through the whole thing again?
A strip mall is probably a sounder investment.
Plus, Spanberger and her fellow Democrats jumped in feet first with tax increases despite Virginia having a surplus. In other words, they intend to spend a whole lot more than they currently bring in, and Virginians are going to be footing the bill for it, thus taking money out of their pockets and ultimately making life less affordable.
But what's happening in Virginia is no different than what happens literally every time the Left takes power. They immediately start catering to the worst of society, supposedly to help those who might be in a similar financial stratus but who don't need that kind of "help" from anyone, and then pretend any criticism is taking a dump on the poor.
As someone who has been below the poverty line as an adult, allow me to inform you that the problem with being there isn't that your landlord can evict you if you don't pay, it's that there's not enough opportunity to make the money to pay the man or woman what they're owed.
It's that the government made everything so damn expensive that there's nothing left for the landlord come the first of the month. It's that literally everything the Left has done has managed to make these destitute Americans' lives so expensive that they can barely survive.
Taxing some people, attacking others, and pretending you're the solution to the problems you created doesn't benefit anyone.
But it sure sounds good on an election flier, doesn't it?
Considering that those who most need affordability are also those who are less likely to be worried about politics, except as it can benefit them directly, it's no wonder socialism keeps on selling to low-information voters.