“Affordability” has become the buzzword in criticizing both the Trump administration and our longstanding capitalist system. Although I acknowledge the disparate impacts of the K-shaped economy, the Left’s constant harping on fairness and wealth inequality is largely a red herring.

It is the Left’s own policies that have caused most of the damage, while free-market capitalism has lifted vast numbers from poverty, as real incomes, consumption, and life expectancies have generally risen across demographics — i.e., the economic “pie” grows faster than inflation and allows each slice of the pie to grow larger. It certainly doesn’t warrant dismantling an economic system that has created so much innovation, value, efficiency, and wealth for this country and the world.