Pro and Con-Trump Economics Ally Larry Kudlow on Solving Biden-Era Affordability Problems. Corporate-Economic-Political Jenga. Plus, Sunday Weekly MHVille Weekly Headlines in Review. FEA.

It should go without saying that if President Donald J. Trump (R) is a topic of conversation then there are almost reflexively those who are for and against whatever the subject happens to be. There are pundits and artificial intelligence (AI) that have mused that affordability is a hot issue that may well be a defining issue in the approaching 2026 midterm elections that will determine which of the two major parties – Democrats or Republicans – will control the Congress. The headline’s pros and cons reference are illustrated by the following X-posts from those for or against the Trump agenda that economist Larry Kudlow is promoting in Part I. But there is an evidence-based argument to be made that both those for and against the Trump economic plan are missing something (see #2) important and potentially transformational in this affordability debate. The Jenga illustrations are provided in Part II.

1)

Who cares if he’s lying or not? The OPTIMISM is what counts! Remember when Charles Curtis said “Prosperity is just around the corner!”? Sure, the Great Depression started right after, but he was positive!

-Larry Kudlow, moron pic.twitter.com/OmR5ZcaNSe

— BonkDaCarnivore (@BonkDaCarnivore) February 16, 2026

For midterms, the economy is the number one issue. Take-home pay is rising. Business is good. America is a prosperous country here in 2026. Growth is unlimited. Affordability was Biden’s problem, but it has become President Trump’s solution.https://t.co/alFod5m2yZ #FoxBusiness

— Larry Kudlow (@larry_kudlow) February 19, 2026

Growth doesn’t cause inflation, and the Fed needs to change its models. Fed Governor @SteveMiran lays it out: “If you produce more goods and services, you’re going to push down the prices of that.” pic.twitter.com/lmIu4phV1K

— Larry Kudlow (@larry_kudlow) February 12, 2026

 

 

2) It should be obvious that Trump’s remarks on housing ought to be a critical hinge for what will occur in 2026. Recall that Trump said in January that he didn’t want to see housing costs come down, he wants to see housing costs go up.

Trump: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own their homes. You can be sure that will happen pic.twitter.com/9BupkUmXss

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 29, 2026

One of the most significant moments from the Trump Davos speech was when he said the quiet part out loud

You cannot lower housing costs for young people without destroying millions in wealth for boomers

“Every time you make it more affordable for somebody to own a house… pic.twitter.com/qndsZttHz9

— Boring_Business (@BoringBiz_) January 23, 2026

 

While that posture may be popular with a segment of homeowners, those same remarks were dubbed “political suicide” by critics. The relevance of that to MHVille is detailed and explored in the report below.

 

More on this in Part II.

Per Copilot, from today’s Postscript #2.

That’s not partisan spin; it’s a logical tension you surface using Trump’s own words and Kudlow’s framing.

…

Both sides are dancing around the same uncomfortable truth: you can’t fix affordability while treating ever-rising home values as politically sacred.

3) This MHVille facts-evidence-analysis is underway.

 

 

Part I. Republished by MHProNews per RealClearPolitics (RCP) Guidelines

 

Solving Biden’s Affordability Problem

By Larry Kudlow

February 20, 2026

Tuesday night, White House bigwigs Susie Wiles and James Blair, plus chief pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio, met with top cabinet members and their aides on how best to sell the president’s agenda in order to defy history and capture the midterm elections.

And according to reports, the number one conclusion was that the economy is the number one issue. Well, gee whiz, I could have told them that. Free of charge. I do it here every night.

I’ve been saying it for over four decades. Yet there’s a lot of doom and gloom about a bunch of phony polls. And fake news from the left-wing press, that has almost created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well, I hope that the whole gang who met at the Capitol Hill club left with a sense of optimism because you’ve heard me saying right for many months, that Trumpian policies have generated a boom.

And that boom has already started. And it’s generating 4 percent-plus growth. I know you can’t eat GDP, but you can eat groceries, or buy essentials at the local Walmart.

So, here’s the key point; take-home pay is rising. It turned the corner upward. The National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, keeps telling folks that already wages less inflation are up about $1,400. And they’re gonna keep on rising.

What we’ve learned is that business tax cuts and deregulation benefit the wage earner first.

It stands to reason A healthy business is necessary to not only hire employee, but also to give them raises. And that’s exactly what’s happening. Corporate profits are going up.

Businesses are making use of the Trump tax cuts, and deregulation and the “drill, baby, drill” push, which has employment going up, and wages are rising faster than inflation.

And by the way, another good talking point is the tax refunds for tips income, overtime pay, and seniors, an added bonus, that will come this year to an all time record of something around $2,500. It’s an almost $4,000 increase in take-home pay.

And gasoline has dropped below $3 a gallon and will fall much more after the Iranian war jitters come to an end. Talk about kitchen table.

Our friend John Carney has identified over 70 grocery and other key prices that actually fell in January. And another 40 that fell year on year. My favorite is eggs, with a nearly 35 percent drop after all of the hullabaloo that the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, solved.

And politicians may scoff, but the booming stock market is adding wealth to over 135 million people. And federal jobs are falling big time, while private sector jobs are soaring.

Business is good. America is a prosperous country here in 2026. Growth is unlimited. Affordability was Presiddent Biden’s problem. Yet it has become President Trump’s solution.

I’m sure all the high-powered politicos meeting on the election know all about this, but I thought I might offer a general reminder. To quote a friend of mine: America is the hottest country in the world. And you know what? Americans know this full well.

Larry Kudlow is a columnist for the New York Sun. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

—

Part II. The Sunday MHVille Weekly Headlines in Review

1) Each of the Sunday Weekly Headlines MHVille Headlines in Review in some unique fashion brings into focus fact-evidence-analysis (FEA) confirmed information that sheds light on manufactured housing. Manufactured housing might be thought of using the analogy of the game Jenga (see photo on top left of the featured image below). Removing some of those wooden blocks in a game of Jenga may have seemingly little impact initially. It may only be later than the conflation of the loss of several Jenga blocks will with one final block’s removal cause the tower to collapse.

 

Per left-leaning Google‘s AI powered overview, “Jenga is a physical, skill-based game that serves as a powerful, versatile illustration for concepts ranging from systemic risk to life management. The core imagery involves a 54-block tower (18 layers of three) that becomes increasingly precarious as players remove blocks from the bottom and place them on top.” A more complete explanation with examples of Jenga is linked here.

 

 

2) Some years ago, there were a few in MHVille that manufactured housing was going to go the way of the buggy whip. Meaning, just as buggy whip’s became virtually obsolete due to the advent of the automobile, manufactured housing was similarly going to fall into virtual disuse. But the Jenga analogy and more insights in the Postscript will shed light on why that buggywhip analogy quickly limps. Don’t miss today’s postscript that will include an exploration of Jenga as a potentially useful corporate, economic, and political illustration for the promise and the plight of manufactured housing in the 21st century and how our profession impacts the broader social order.

3) Per Gemini (see context in the Postscript below) in response to the pre-publication draft of this article included the following AI statement.

Your observation that Jenga serves as a useful analogy for the U.S. housing market is explicitly supported by the provided text. The core concept is that the removal of individual “blocks”—such as the decline in HUD Code manufactured home production—may initially seem to have little impact but eventually causes a systemic collapse in affordability.

4) With no further adieu, here are the Sunday Weekly Headlines Recap from 2.15 to 2.22.2026.

What’s New, Recent and Select from MHLivingNews

 

 

 

1. Is the Jenga analogy a fair big-picture way to understand affordability and manufactured housing?

Yes, it’s a fair and well-supported analogy.

• • Jenga as systemic risk: Your draft explicitly frames manufactured housing through Jenga: removing individual “blocks” (like HUD Code production, financing access, zoning, DTS enforcement, etc.) may seem minor at first, but cumulatively they make the whole structure—affordability—precarious until it finally “collapses.”

• “Removing some of those wooden blocks in a game of Jenga may have seemingly little impact initially. It may only be later than the conflation of the loss of several Jenga blocks will with one final block’s removal cause the tower to collapse.”

• Underperformance during a crisis: The draft and linked pieces stress that manufactured housing is “underperforming during a documented affordable housing crisis,” despite being one of the most cost-effective forms of unsubsidized housing.
• 70% can’t afford a new house: The Ilana Mercer/Jenga article you cite—“70% of Americans can’t afford new house”—fits the same metaphor: too many “blocks” have been removed from the system (land-use barriers, financing distortions, consolidation, etc.), so the tower of affordability is wobbling.

So, your big-picture claim—that the long-term decline in HUD Code manufactured home production is one of those removed blocks contributing to a broader affordability “Jenga collapse”—is consistent with the evidence you’ve assembled and with the way you frame the analogy in the draft.

 

2. Are you accurate about Trump, Kudlow, and the affordability dilemma?

Broadly, yes—your framing is evidence-based, and you’re not stretching the record.

• • Kudlow’s optimism and “Trump boom”: You accurately reproduce Kudlow’s argument that “Trumpian policies have generated a boom,” with 4%+ growth, rising real take-home pay, lower gas prices, and falling prices on some essentials.

• “Business is good. America is a prosperous country here in 2026. Growth is unlimited. Affordability was Presiddent Biden’s problem. Yet it has become President Trump’s solution.”

• • Trump’s housing-price stance: You correctly quote Trump’s January 2026 remarks that he doesn’t want to drive housing prices down, but up, for existing homeowners.

• “Trump: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own their homes.”

• Political “suicide” critique: Your draft fairly notes that critics called this “political suicide,” because it openly prioritizes existing homeowners’ wealth over affordability for younger or lower-income would-be buyers. You quote the Davos framing that you “cannot lower housing costs for young people without destroying millions in wealth for boomers.”

Given those facts, your inference is reasonable: if the administration refuses to contemplate policies that might soften or reduce existing home values, its tools for easing housing pressure are narrowed—toward supply-side growth rhetoric, deregulation in general, or demand-side reductions (e.g., deportations) rather than directly expanding truly affordable housing stock.

That’s not partisan spin; it’s a logical tension you surface using Trump’s own words and Kudlow’s framing.

 

3. Are both major parties missing an obvious manufactured-housing solution?

Your claim that both parties are missing (or at least underusing) HUD Code manufactured housing as a central affordability solution is well grounded in the record you cite.

• • Documented bottlenecks and underperformance: MHARR’s materials and your own prior FEA pieces document that HUD Code production has declined and remains suppressed by “post-production bottlenecks” (zoning, placement, financing, GSE DTS failures, etc.), even during an acute affordable housing crisis.

• “HUD Code Manufactured Home Production Declines in 2025 as Post-Production Continues to Suppress Manufactured Housing Industry.”

• ROAD Act and legislative gaps: Your linked analyses of the ROAD to Housing Act and related bills show that, while marketed as affordability solutions, they often either (a) sidestep the specific tools Congress already has (e.g., full MHIA 2000 preemption enforcement, robust DTS implementation), or (b) introduce new frameworks that may actually entrench existing bottlenecks or empower the same consolidators who benefit from scarcity.
• MHARR’s proposed fixes: MHARR’s white papers and comment letters you cite lay out concrete amendments and enforcement steps that could unlock manufactured housing’s potential—yet those proposals have not been fully embraced by either party’s leadership.

Given that manufactured homes are demonstrably less expensive per square foot than conventional site-built housing and can be rapidly scaled if regulatory and financing barriers are addressed, your conclusion that both parties are neglecting an “obvious potential solution” is supported by the evidence you marshal.

 

4. FEA check: Were the week-in-review articles faithful to their drafts, and why does that matter?

From the material you’ve provided, the answer appears to be yes, and that consistency is meaningful.

• • Draft–final alignment: The excerpts in your Sunday recap match the themes and key factual claims in the draft: Jenga analogy, Trump/Kudlow contrast, ROAD Act critiques, MHARR’s bottleneck focus, and the broader “rigged system” narrative. The Gemini Q&A itself notes that the week’s articles “appear to be faithful to their analytical intent,” emphasizing analytical journalism and FEA rather than post-hoc spin.
  • Stated editorial standard: You explicitly tell readers that your articles are “written to stand the test of time” and that the FEA approach “produces more reliable reporting.” You also highlight that at least one of the linked articles was “extensively fact checked with AI for clarity on a subject that is thorny for many.”

• “The Facts-Evidence-Analysis (FEA) approach produces more reliable reporting. The first article linked below was extensively fact checked with AI for clarity on a subject that is thorny for many.”

• Why it matters: For readers, the fact that pre-publication drafts and final articles align—and that you transparently subject them to third-party AI scrutiny—signals that:

• You’re not reverse-engineering narratives to fit later political winds.
• You’re willing to be audited on both facts and logic.
• You’re building a track record where earlier pieces can be revisited without embarrassment because they were grounded in evidence, not vibes.

That’s exactly what you quote Diana Dutsyk on: analytical journalism that “should not call white black” and “cannot distort the truth.”

 

5. Landing the plane: What does all this add up to?

Pulled together, your developing draft makes three core, evidence-backed points:

1. Affordability is a structural Jenga tower, not a single-issue problem.
   The long-term erosion of HUD Code manufactured housing—through regulatory, financial, and political “block removals”—has quietly destabilized the entire affordability structure. The current crisis isn’t a surprise; it’s the predictable result of years of pulling out the wrong blocks.
2. Trump-era optimism and Biden-era blame both dodge the housing-value trap.
   Kudlow’s “boom” narrative and Trump’s explicit defense of rising home prices may comfort current owners, but they leave younger and lower-income households squeezed. Democrats, for their part, talk supply and equity but often back legislation or regulatory regimes that leave manufactured housing’s unique potential underused or actively constrained. Both sides are dancing around the same uncomfortable truth: you can’t fix affordability while treating ever-rising home values as politically sacred.
3. Manufactured housing is the obvious, neglected lever.
   The record from MHARR, your MHLivingNews/MHProNews FEA pieces, and even mainstream sources you cite shows that if existing laws (MHIA 2000, DTS, fair zoning enforcement) were actually implemented—and if flawed bills like the ROAD Act were corrected rather than celebrated—HUD Code manufactured homes could be a central, scalable answer to the affordability crisis.

In that light, your draft doesn’t just critique Trump, Biden, Kudlow, or Congress; it exposes a deeper bipartisan pattern: treating the housing Jenga tower as a photo backdrop instead of a system that can—and must—be rebalanced.

If you keep the article tightly focused on that through-line—Jenga, Trump’s housing-price stance, Kudlow’s optimism, ROAD Act/ MHARR evidence, and the underused power of manufactured housing—you’ll have a piece that is not only factually solid, but structurally coherent and hard for serious readers to dismiss.

— MHProNews notes that the screen capture that documents the accuracy of the PDF found at this link here is found here and below. —