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Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #1409
12/10/2025
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1) Three Cheers for Rising Home Values

For tens of millions of Americans the principal asset that they own is their home. It is part of their lifetime savings. So rising home values is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing in terms of the financial condition of American households.

The chart below shows that Americans now hold a combined $35 TRILLION of equity in their homes - or more than the value of all publicly-traded businesses in Europe. Adjusted for inflation, home values have increased nearly 10-fold since 1960.

To argue that rising home values are bad because this makes purchasing a new home more expensive would be like saying that a booming stock market is bad because it makes stocks more expensive to buy.
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The one thing worse than rising home values is DECLINING home values. If you don't believe us, ask people who owned homes in Detroit 30 years ago and their equity often went from more than $100,000 to $25,000 or less.

Young Americans who complain about the "affordability crisis" don't seem to understand that most of this tens of trillions of dollars of home equity will eventually be turned over to them - and sooner than they think.
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2) Blue States Charge Double for Electric Power

We've reported on the fact that homeowners and businesses in red states pay about half as much for electric power as do those in red states. This is a giant monthly "cost-of-living-tax" for residing in a blue state where the politicians impose expensive green energy mandates on their rate payers.

This chart from our friends at the Institute for Energy Research ([link removed]) lays it out even more clearly:
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It turns out the "green new deal" isn't such a great “deal” after all:

States that have embraced aggressive renewable mandates... deliver the nation's highest electricity prices.

California and New York, the poster children for this approach, now charge their residents and businesses significantly more than the national average, with price increases that have consistently outpaced the rest of the country.

In contrast, states that have prioritized dispatchable, affordable generation consistently deliver the lowest electricity prices.

Florida keeps rates below the national average despite near-universal air conditioning demand and frequent hurricanes. Louisiana enjoys the third-lowest rates in the nation while utilizing its abundant natural gas resources...

High electricity prices are not an inevitability; they are a choice.

Exactly.
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3) A Ban on Drug Ads Is Bad for Your Health

Here's Washington's latest terrible idea. VT Senator Bernie Sanders wants prescription drug ads removed from the TV airwaves. What's worrisome is that Trump's HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., supports the ban as well.

They claim a drug ad ban will hold down the cost of prescription drugs. By that logic, we can cut the cost of hamburgers by prohibiting McDonalds from advertising the Big Mac.

The ban is also rotten economics. Firms are expected to put at risk as much as $1 billion to research and develop a new drug and endure years of testing to get FDA approval, but then even after it's proven safe and effective, they aren't allowed to market the product? So a company can spend billions of dollars to advertise a Snickers bar or M&Ms, but not a penny to promote a drug that reduces pain and suffering and potentially saves countless lives?

RFK and Bernie Sanders both slam drug ads based on studies that show patients who ask their doctors about a specific drug they saw advertised are much more likely to get a prescription. But imagine there were a new wonder drug on the market that cured breast cancer. The government refused to allow the pharmaceutical company to advertise to cancer patients that the drug exists. How many women might die without even asking their doctor if the new treatment might work for them? Why take that chance?
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4) Colorado May Adopt a Rocky Mountain High Income Tax

Colorado is becoming bluer every day, so it's no surprise that the agenda is tax and spend.

What a shame. A Democratic governor and GOP legislature approved a flat-rate income tax in the 1980s and in the 1990s voters passed TABOR, the toughest limit on spending of any state.

But the California invasion has allowed progressives to control all the levers of power in the Colorado legislature. They've watered down TABOR and are now gunning to replace the state's successful flat tax (now at 4.4%).

The Democrats have placed a measure on next year's ballot to impose a progressive tax with a dozen (!) brackets and would raise taxes by over $4 billion. As bait, those with lower incomes would see a small tax cut, while the wealthier would pay hundreds of thousands more a year.

We can’t think of a better way to make Colorado poorer.

Our co-founder, Dr. Arthur Laffer, has shown that ([link removed]) every one of the 11 states - including New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut - that has adopted a progressive income tax over the past 50 years has lost ground economically and population to low tax states.
A line chart with the title, "9 zero earned income tax states vs 11 post-1960 income tax adoption states: share of US personal income."

Here’s our advice to Colorado voters: don’t turn your state into California!
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5) Should Cell Phones in Classrooms Be Banned?

Speaking of bans (see item 3 above), there’s a big debate about whether schools should ban cellphones in classrooms.

Few public policy books have had as swift an impact as psychologist Jonathan Haidt's attack on the obsessive use of cell phones by kids: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

In 2025 alone, 22 states enacted laws or regulations requiring local public school districts to ban or limit cell phone use, raising the total to 26 states.

The laws appear to be having an effect. Researchers from the University of Rochester and the RAND Corporation found that in the first full year that Florida's in-school cellphone ban was in effect, student test scores increased by as much as 10% of a standard deviation.
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The study reports that Florida's law led to an increase in school suspensions but that quickly subsided after students realized the policy was there to stay. The number of student unexcused absences also declined and the ability of students to focus on assignments grew.

But most importantly, student test scores significantly improved in the second year of the ban and across many subject areas.

It appears cellphone bans improve discipline and attention skills in schools, but real learning gains come from high-quality curriculum, tutoring, and instruction.

But cell phones can be a learning-enhancing tool as well - just like a laptop computer.

To us, the question is: who should decide: parents or school administrators.

This is yet another reason we continue to press for universal school choice programs. Then some schools can allow cell phones and others not. Then parents, not bureaucrats, can decide whether they want to send their kids to a school that bans cell phones.

Problem solved.
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6) You Better Watch Out...

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