Price Controls Won't Work Any Better for Republicans Than It Does Dems

And, as affordability remains a leading issue among voters, the Trump administration has regularly used rhetoric and ideas that mirror those of progressive Democrats like Zohran Mamdani.

Take the president's recent idea for capping credit card interest rates at 10%. Or rather, the idea that's already proposed in a bill sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley. "They've really abused the public," the president said of credit card companies. "I'm not going to let it happen."

This probably feels good to hear. But if you find an APR on a new credit card offer "predatory," definitely do not sign up for it. You don't owe the bank anything, and it doesn't owe you.

An interest rate, though, reflects risk. It's the entry price for obtaining credit. If you have a good credit score, you get lower rates and vice versa.

Capping the rate won't eliminate credit risk factors, though it will likely shrink available money for people who need it most: lower-income and young workers, or anyone else trying to build up their credit. Lots of entrepreneurs and small-business owners also rely on credit cards to tide them over for a season or help with up-front capital.

And those who are denied cards will still need funds. They'll inevitably seek out other means of borrowing, probably at even higher rates. Maybe they'll go to payday loans and cash checking places. Maybe they'll take second mortgages. Maybe they'll go to the black market.

There are those who argue that Americans already borrow far too much and that limiting access to credit would be good for them. Rest assured, these nannies almost surely own their homes and cars — purchases that become even more prohibitive for people unable to improve their credit scores.

Trump likes to explicitly threaten or jawbone companies into doing his bidding. Bank of America, for example, is reportedly considering offering a credit card with interest capped at 10% to placate the administration.

Well, there's no federal cap on what APRs banks can offer on credit cards. If providers want to undercut competition, nothing is stopping them. Banks are businesses, after all, not charities.

But if banks lose out charging riskier customers lower interest rates to get on the good side of the administration, they'll simply raise fees elsewhere, pull back on rewards and find other creative ways to make their reliable consumers pay.

Price fixing never alleviates cost — it merely displaces it.

Take the socialist mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, as he "cracks down," as one travel magazine referred to it, on "junk fees" in city hotels.

"Junk" is just a description of a cost that consumers and politicians have arbitrarily decided shouldn't be paid. But they will be. Hotels will almost inevitably raise prices elsewhere or decrease services to make up for it.

Economic magical thinking never dies, however, because it's tethered to envy and anger rather than rational thinking. Thomas Sowell points out that the typically "mundane" explanations for economic activity are "far less emotionally satisfying than an explanation which produces villains to hate and heroes to exalt."

And there is no more convenient villain than a faceless profit-mongering landlord.

Take another price control policy championed by Mamdani: rent control, a practice that's been failing to lower housing costs since Roman times, at least.

A slew of studies and empirical evidence find that rent control doesn't work. The vast majority of economists, both on the Right and Left, believe it's a bad idea. Still, most polls find that rent "stabilization" is supported by around 80% of New Yorkers.

Every generation, it seems, convinces itself it possesses the best technocrats and formula to properly control economic activity to make it fairer and decent. Mamdani is just another in a long line of politicians who play the role.

But Trump? He should know better.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 01/16/26 The Left's Silence on Iran Is NOT Hypocrisy
• 12/26/25: For JD Vance, Free Speech Only Means His Friends Can't Be Criticized
• 12/12/25: The Left Doesn't Believe in the Constitutional Order
• 12/07/25: War Powers Are Dead
• 11/27/25: MTG Embodies the Inanity of Populism
• 11/14/25: Gaslighting Americans is latest Dem Disaster
• 11/11/25: Trump's Filibuster Nuke Would Hand Dems the Keys To Remake America
• 11/04/25: Let's Talk About the Real Genocide of Christians in Africa
• 10/16/25: Obamacare Is a Massive Failure. The GOP Shouldn't Bail It Out
• 10/10/25: Why Aren't 'Ceasefire Now!' Activists Celebrating Trump's Gaza Peace Deal?
• 09/12/25: Israel's Strike on Qatar Should Have Happened Years Ago
• 09/05/25: An Open Letter to My Esteemed Colleagues at the International Association of Genocide Scholars
• 08/29/25: The President Doesn't Get to Dictate How We Express Ourselves
• 08/22/25: Is Socialism as Popular as the Media Think?
• 08/15/25: Save the Little Sisters of the Poor!
• 08/08/25: RFK Jr.'s War on Vaccines and Public Health Continues
• 08/01/25: Europe's Recognition of 'Palestine' Is a Cynical Joke
• 07/18/25: Legacy Media Still Covering for Biden
• 06/27/25: Trump Learned the Lessons of Iraq
• 05/30/25: We Have No Constitutional or Moral Duty to Subsidize Harvard
• 05/30/25: Welcome to the Intifada, America
• 05/16/25: Scapegoating Biden Isn't Going to Solve the Dems' Problems
• 05/09/25: The Pulitzer Prizes Have Become a Sad Joke
• 05/05/25: How Do You Do, Fellow White People? Tim Walz Says Hello!
• 04/25/25: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes a Powerful Argument for School Choice
• 04/18/25: If Everyone Is an Expert, No One Is
• 03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
• 03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
• 03/03/25: Mitch McConnell: A GOP Hall of Famer?
• 02/21/25: RFK's Dangerous Autism Lie
• 02/14/25: It's Time to End the EV Racket
• 02/07/25: If You Really Support Immigration, Stop Excusing Chaos
• 02/03/25: Trump's Gaza Proposal Makes Complete Sense
• 01/24/25: How Biden's Pardons Normalize Abuse of Power
• 01/17/25: Israel Makes a Deal With the Actual Devil
• 01/13/25: Why Javier Milei Matters
• 12/20/24: The Obama Doctrine Is Dead
• 12/13/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 12/09/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 11/08/24: Don't Trash the Constitution to Dunk on the Libs
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• 11/01/24: HARRIS Is the Bigger Threat to the Constitutional Order
• 09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
• 07/13/24: Explain Yourself, Kamala Harris!
• 07/05/24: How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week
• 04/12/24: Biden Is Now Chasing the 'Death to America' Voter
• 03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
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• 02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
• 06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
• 03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
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• 01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
• 04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
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• 04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
• 03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
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• 01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
• 01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
• 01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
• 12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
• 12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
• 11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
• 10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
• 09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
• 09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
• 09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
• 08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
• 07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
• 06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
• 05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
• 04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
• 03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
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• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
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• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?