Open Letter to Pete Buttigieg: Tell Us What You’re For
This is a 7-minute read.
Dear Secretary Buttigieg:
On July 24, you sat down with Sandra Smith on America Reports, a Fox News program. I admire that you have the courage and the capability to engage with a network generally unfriendly to Democrats.
Smith was reasonable and fair, and she pressed you more than once to explain your approach to the affordability problem. “What are you offering?” “What is the solution to what you say are failed economic policies?” “What are you pitching?”
I write as someone who admires your moderation and intellect, who thinks you are one of the most capable communicators in politics, and who supported you in 2020. I also think you failed to answer the question in any substantive way.
The missed opportunity reminded me of Kamala Harris on The View in 2024, when Sunny Hostin asked what she would have done differently from Joe Biden and she said that nothing came to mind. That should have been a layup. So should have been the opening Sandra Smith gave you.
Opposition is not an economic program
Trump has made a career of selling outcomes and not process. End the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Bring down prices on day one. Replace Obamacare with something great. We know what that got us.
Reciting a litany of Trump criticisms is the Democratic version of the same thing. Prices are too high. The war is costing us at the pump. Average Americans are struggling while billionaires get tax cuts.
We know all that, and Smith acknowledged it. Still, she wanted more, and we want more. She kept returning to the same question. What are you pitching?
The components of a credible response
It is not fair to say that you had no response. But the response was wholly inadequate, and what specificity you did provide does not pass the substance test.
There are 342 million Americans, 160 million of whom are working. Far too many are struggling with the principal components of the average household budget: housing, healthcare, education, and food.
As I discuss in The Anatomy of Affordability, a credible answer would address the root problem. Housing, healthcare, and education all suffer from a lack of supply, which has driven up their prices faster than the rate of inflation. Each has been subject to decades of accumulated government regulations or monopolistic privileges that have impeded the marketplace from delivering greater supply at a lower price.
With respect to food, we suffer from occasional supply disruptions that affect cost in the short run (like the current war in Iran), but the real driver of the increase in the cost of food over the last few years has been the unexpected inflation brought about by poor Federal Reserve policy.
A credible answer would deal with both. It would outline pro-growth policies in the areas of housing, healthcare, and education to remove regulatory impediments to greater supply. With respect to food, it would characterize the problem correctly and include support for Federal Reserve reform to ensure stable prices.
It would also include a recognition that you can’t address the structural problem of affordability with more government subsidies. While subsidies help some individuals in the short run, they are paid for by others and have the effect of increasing demand rather than generating more supply. A credible answer must also acknowledge that at $40 trillion of debt we are reaching the limit of our capacity to continue to borrow to fund large expansions of government programs.
Your answer failed to meet these standards
First came the familiar call to raise the minimum wage.
Once again, your instinct is to involve government in regulating the market rather than encouraging growth. A higher minimum wage raises the cost of labor and risks reducing the number of jobs. That reality should be acknowledged.
It is also true that 30 states and the District of Columbia already have minimum wages that are higher than the federal level of $7.25. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that after you remove tip-wage earners and individuals under the age of 25, you are left with 39,000 Americans working at the federal minimum. Of course, a raise for them would be a welcome thing, but in a workforce of 160 million, its impact will be immaterial. Having said that, the higher the new minimum wage, the more people are affected. In 2021, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a $15 federal minimum would affect 17 million people. While that is becoming meaningful, it also invites the first question of how many jobs would be lost at that level, which the CBO estimated at 1.4 million.
The second proposal was to pass a version of what you call Medicare for All Who Want It. There are several problems with this.
First, it is highly unlikely that you will achieve it. Not only will you meet significant Republican resistance, but we also can’t afford it. A serious proposal to deal with the nation’s debt is a prerequisite for any major new spending initiative, and on that subject you were silent.
Second, the public option you propose does nothing about the underlying cost and availability of care. National health spending was $1,067 per person in 1980. In 2024 it was $15,474. General prices rose less than fourfold over that period. Health spending per person rose more than fourteenfold. Adjusting for the fact that we consume more medical care than we did in 1980, medical care CPI still rose more than twice as fast as general CPI.
One important reason is constrained supply. For example, the U.S. has 2.7 practicing doctors per 1,000 people against an OECD average of 3.7, and 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 against an average of 4.3. Medicare-funded residency slots remain well below demand. Certificate-of-need laws still require permission in many states before a provider may add a bed, and many states still restrict or prohibit telehealth across state borders.
Like all subsidies, healthcare subsidies have a role in helping people in the short term, but you cannot increase demand across the board while not addressing the problem of supply.
The third proposal, reinstating the Obamacare tax credits, suffers from the same defect. The enhanced credits came from the American Rescue Plan in 2021, were extended by the Inflation Reduction Act, and expired on January 1, 2026. They were never intended to be permanent.
While I am sympathetic to those who lost their subsidies, you cannot address broad affordability challenges for a nation of 342 million people with programs that rely on subsidies – especially when you don’t have the money to pay for them.
Your final suggestion was to explore tax credits to lower the cost of childcare. Again, a tax credit lowers the cost to some at the expense of others. The others here are our children, who will pay for our unfunded spending. It does nothing about the regulatory impediments to more childcare in the marketplace.
Your radical change speeches
Prior to writing, this I listened to several of the speeches that you have given around the country. You speak regularly and persuasively about the need for radical change to our politics. For you, this means a constitutional amendment to take money out of politics, a restructuring of the Supreme Court, an end to gerrymandering, and the abolition of the Electoral College. All are worth debating. None is practical enough to make a difference in people’s lives over the next few years. None will improve affordability.
What concerns me is the asymmetry. You are specific about ideas that are aspirational, and vague about things that could make a difference tomorrow.
Your website fails the "as opposed to what?" test
I also went to Win the Era, your action fund, to see what I could learn.
The mission statement says the group backs solutions that are bold, equitable, and sustainable, and wants the next chapter of American life to be more inclusive, prosperous, and decent. These are nice objectives, but not one is accompanied by an actionable plan.
The values page, which you call the Rules of the Road, lists ten: respect, belonging, truth, teamwork, boldness, responsibility, substance, discipline, excellence, and joy.
In business I always approved marketing material after applying the “As opposed to what?” test. In other words, if not excellence, then what? If not respect, truth, and responsibility, then what? The opposite? Are other candidates promoting disrespect, exclusion, dishonesty, and gloom?
If you can’t pass the “as opposed to what?” test you should drop the superficial language and replace it with real policy.
What we need
I will not reiterate here the policies that would resonate. They are here at edorazem.substack.com and on my site OurFutureAmerica.org as well as on the sites of many others in the pro-growth or abundance world. The details of a pro-growth platform can be debated, but the broad strokes should at least be part of your dialogue.
All but the wealthiest Americans face the high cost of housing, healthcare, education, and food. What is needed are policies that increase supply in those four sectors. Everywhere the market has been left alone, prices have fallen in real terms or relative to income. Televisions, computers, clothing, air travel, you name it. Their prices have consistently fallen over time. And nobody passed a law to make them cheaper; they just let the market work.
Lead by example
We are ready to be for something. Being anti-Trump is not enough. Opposition is not a strategy. Give us something to be for. And show the leadership of both parties how it is done.
Ed Orazem