11 ideas to help lower costs for American families

How the loan works

• Qualified private lenders compete to offer the second loan. Bonds supply the money, and common federal rules apply.
• A buyer can finance up to 35% of the appraised value. Newly built starter homes and homes that renters buy from large landlords can get extra support.
• There is no monthly payment on the second loan.
• When the home is sold, the buyer repays the amount borrowed plus the same share of the home’s gain in value.
• Repaid money is lent again to future buyers. It is not a one-time grant.
• An example model shows a 30% second loan freeing up about $645 to $1,373 a month across three sample households. These examples are not a promise of savings.

Protections for buyers

• Regional price caps keep the program from fueling luxury sales or simply pushing prices up.
• Rules on living in the home, first-time buyers, income, inspections, escrow, and safe lending protect families from taking on too much.
• Money a family spends on documented home improvements is not counted as gain, so the family keeps the value it creates.
• Refinancing to a new rate or term should not force repayment.
• Buyers get a clear, penalty-free way to say no to the product.

Why more homes are part of the plan

Help for buyers without more homes can raise prices. So the plan also calls for easier financing of condos and townhomes, more starter homes, more modular housing, and rewards for large rental owners who sell homes to their tenants or to other people who will live in them. Tenants would get a first chance to buy.

The tradeoff

The buyer gives up a share of future gains. In return, the family gets into a home sooner, keeps most of the gains, and pays no interest or monthly bills on the second loan. The fair comparison is not only a regular mortgage. For many families it is renting for years and building no equity at all.

One bill

For a procedure the hospital coordinates, the patient gets one bill from the hospital. The hospital pays the anesthesiologists, labs, imaging providers, and others. The patient does not have to sort out separate bills and networks.

Make insurance easier to compare

• Offer a limited set of standard plan designs, so benefits can be compared side by side.
• Use common billing codes so insurers cannot win by making claims harder to understand.
• Use clear, set payment schedules to reduce the power that comes from hospital mergers.
• A provider would accept a plan across all of its locations, not pick and choose networks.

Accountability for nonprofit hospitals

Require nonprofit hospitals to publish how much free and discounted care they give and how they use their tax exemption. Federal law would set measurable standards for charity care and community benefit, require clear reporting of executive pay, and put tax-exempt status at risk after repeated failure.

The hard questions

Standard plans can limit new ideas. Some doctors might leave insurance networks and take only cash. Any final law would also need strong risk adjustment. That means plans cannot profit by attracting healthy patients and avoiding people with greater medical needs.

The gap today

Debit card users have a federal right to stop certain automatic payments. Credit card users do not. Also, some card-update services pass a new card number to a company even after you cancel the old card.

How it would work

• Define a clear category for subscriptions and charges that renew unless you cancel.
• You approve a company once. That approval ends after one year unless you renew it.
• A stop-payment request to your card company is binding on the card company and the payment network.
• Card updater services must get your permission for each company before sharing a new card number.

Enforcement without a new agency

Companies would label what they sell. The banks that process their payments would check those labels. Card issuers would have to honor stop-payment requests. State attorneys general and consumers could take action over repeated violations.

The tradeoff

Stronger consent adds some friction. The yearly approval is the compromise. It is often enough to catch forgotten charges, but it does not interrupt a service you want every month.

Who pays for new demand

Very large customers, such as data centers, should pay for the grid, power plants, and connections their projects need. Those costs should not be passed into home electric rates.

Federal tools

• Use the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to improve power line planning and the process for connecting to the grid.
• Make cost sharing for large users public, so households can see what they are and are not paying for.
• Update Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing while keeping independent safety review.

A realistic supply plan

A better grid and advanced nuclear power can help supply last for the long term. Neither removes the need for honest rate design now. Technology that does not exist yet should not be sold as a quick fix for your power bill.

Use federal tools that already exist

• Expand Perkins career and technical education funding.
• Grow registered apprenticeships run through the Department of Labor.
• Let short, high-value job training programs qualify for some Pell Grant support.
• Link training money to skilled jobs in housing, energy, infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing.

Measure learning differently

It is getting harder to tell what a student wrote from what software wrote. Schools could use fewer high-stakes tests and more in-person ways for students to show what they understand before they move on.

Choice tied to results

This is not universal vouchers. More options would open only when a school has failed students over a long period. That would be judged by student growth, not raw test scores alone. Where a school is working, public policy should help it, not drain it.

The problem

Transportation was the second-largest spending category after housing in the federal government’s 2024 household averages. That includes more than owning a car, and each family’s budget is different. A family without reliable transportation can struggle to reach a better job across town. Self-driving fleets could offer another option, but technology alone does not decide who benefits. Rules do.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: 2024 household spending (February 12, 2026)

What the cost reports show

These reports were checked on October 11, 2026. They describe car costs, not what a self-driving service would charge or save.

• Kelley Blue Book reported that buyers paid an average of $49,855 for a new vehicle in July 2026. That is an average across vehicles sold, not the price of every car.
• In Edmunds’ data, a $10,000 to $15,000 budget bought a used vehicle averaging 8.7 years old and about 98,000 miles in April through June 2026. In the same months of 2019, that budget bought one averaging 4.7 years old and about 58,000 miles. These are group averages, not a promise about any particular car.
• AAA estimated $12,863 a year to own and operate a new vehicle in its 2026 study, based on five years and 75,000 miles. That includes loss in resale value, not just monthly bills. Your cost will depend on the car, where you live, and how much you drive. AAA changed its method, so this estimate should not be directly compared with its 2025 total.

• Kelley Blue Book / Cox Automotive: July 2026 new-vehicle prices (August 11, 2026)
• Edmunds: second-quarter 2026 used-car report (August 18, 2026)
• AAA: 2026 new-vehicle ownership costs (September 15, 2026)

Four fair-ownership rules

• Ownership cap. No single manufacturer or ride platform could directly own more than a set share of the licensed self-driving fleet vehicles in a metro area. Above that share, vehicles must be independently owned. The cap tightens as the market grows, before one company dominates.
• Open access. A large platform must accept qualified independent owners on published, equal terms. It can require safety, maintenance, and service standards. It cannot exclude owners at random.
• Fair dispatch. A cap means little if a platform sends rides to its own cars first. Ride assignment must not depend on who owns the car, and outside auditors must be able to check how it works.
• Clear terms. Platforms would publish their fees and could not change the economic terms of an existing owner contract midway. Owners would get data on their own car’s use and earnings. Owners could list the same car on more than one platform, so platforms compete for owners.

Why this idea has precedent

The country has often limited a company from owning both a product and the only way to reach it. Examples include rules that kept movie studios from owning theaters and rules that kept airlines from ranking their own flights first. Those rules were meant to keep markets open, not to punish business.

Safety, coverage, and transit

• Safety standards would apply to every car and every owner. This plan does not promise that any system is safe. Regulators would need to set and enforce the standards.
• Require service areas that reach beyond downtown, including neighborhoods that are hard to serve.
• Fleets would work alongside buses and trains. They would not replace public transit.

What Congress can do

• Federal law limits certain temporary safety-standard exemptions to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer in a 12-month period. This is not a limit on every self-driving fleet. It applies to vehicles using those exemptions because they do not meet all existing vehicle standards.
• Congress could change that exemption limit and attach fair-ownership rules and enforceable safety requirements. Those ownership rules are this proposal, not current law.
• In its July 2026 update, the federal vehicle safety agency said it had begun work on self-driving performance requirements. Work on standards is not the same as having final rules, and it is not a guarantee of safety.
• Set a national framework for safety, ownership, and open access while the industry is still small.
• Require fleets that operate across state lines to follow the access rules.

• 49 U.S.C. § 30113(d)–(e): exemption limits (2024 Code edition; checked October 11, 2026)
• NHTSA: automated-vehicle framework update (July 31, 2026)

Drivers and owners

People who drive for ride apps today could lose that work. This plan aims to open a chance for some of them to own a car instead. It is an opportunity, not a guarantee. Owning a car carries costs and risks, and owner income is not promised. The published data and terms are meant to help people decide with open eyes.

The tradeoffs

Caps and open-access rules could slow how fast companies expand, and could add costs for them. Safety and service checks add paperwork for owners. Some people will say the market should decide. The case for this plan is that without rules, one company may end up owning the cars, the network, and the customer.

How it would work

• Update federal funding formulas more often so fast-growing places are not funded for an old population.
• Turn some competitive grants into predictable formulas, so funding does not favor the places with the biggest grant-writing teams.
• Communities that get these funds would publish how much service they provide per resident, next to their population growth.
• For long-term failure to report, cut a small, growing share of related funds. This is not an all-or-nothing cutoff.

What counts as capacity

Police and fire are just examples. The same report would cover water and sewer systems, road upkeep, schools, courts, emergency response, and other basic services that rapid growth can strain.

Who is responsible for what

Washington can make funding follow the people who really live in a place. Hiring, management, and daily service stay with local elected officials.

The main change

Today, Social Security payroll tax applies only up to a yearly pay limit. The plan would phase that limit out. People earning above the limit would pay the tax on the wages that are now above it. Workers below the limit already pay on all their wages.

What the estimates tell us

A previous analysis of a similar change estimated it could close roughly three-fifths of the 75-year funding gap. That is not an estimate of this full plan. A new, independent review is needed before claiming how many years of full benefits it would protect.

What the money is for

• Protect scheduled benefits and shrink the long-term funding gap.
• Rebuild the trust fund reserves instead of starting unrelated spending.
• Strengthen the minimum benefit for people who worked a lifetime at low wages.
• Require a new independent Social Security actuarial score before anyone claims a specific date when the program is safe.

What this plan does not do

It does not make benefits depend on stock market returns. It does not mix Social Security money with the housing bond plan. The trust funds need steady income when benefits come due.

Retirement age

Raising the retirement age for everyone hits hardest for people in physical jobs and groups with shorter life expectancy. Claiming early at 62 would stay available. Any future talk about age would need to protect lower earners and hard physical work.

The proposed system

• Keep permanent border enforcement alongside the legal work process.
• Offer a two-year work status, renewable up to five times, to eligible people who come forward, document who they are, work, and pay taxes.
• Let workers change employers. Reporting wage theft or unsafe work would not cost them their legal status.
• After ten years of steady work and taxes paid, allow a path to permanent residency.

Who would not qualify

A serious or violent felony conviction would disqualify an applicant, and could end their status later. After a set sign-up period, people who stay outside the system would be the top priority for enforcement.

Legal immigration that follows real needs

Future work visas would respond to documented needs in each industry, not only to who applied first. People with DACA or Temporary Protected Status could move directly into the documented system. Military service could speed up the timeline.

Why switching jobs matters

When an employer controls a worker’s status, abusive employers gain power over that worker. Businesses that break the rules can then undercut those that follow them. A permit held by the worker supports fair pay and fair competition.

How it would work

A private buyer and seller complete the sale through a licensed firearms dealer. The dealer runs the existing federal background check and keeps records under the rules that already exist. The dealer may charge a reasonable fee.

What stays the same

• It uses the current dealer and background check system. It does not create a new federal agency.
• It does not create a national registry of gun owners.
• People who pass the check can buy and own firearms as they can today.

The idea behind it

Private sales would go through a licensed dealer using the existing background check. There would be no national list of gun owners.

The legal framework

• Set a federal minimum for access across the country through 18 weeks.
• Let states allow broader access if their voters and laws choose to.
• After 18 weeks, keep medical exceptions and respect the judgment of the patient and doctor.
• Treat legality and federal funding as two separate questions.

Different beliefs

People hold sincere, different beliefs about when life begins. This plan sets a national minimum and lets states go further.

The result, stated plainly

A national minimum through 18 weeks would replace earlier state limits. States could allow access after 18 weeks. Medical exceptions would remain after 18 weeks.

Access and funding

Whether a procedure is legal and whether federal funds pay for it remain separate questions under this plan.