The 2023 legislative session will be heavily focused on price controls, though those may come under a different name. They can be as simple as capping the price of certain medicine, but can also take different forms, such as allowing localities to enact rent control.

These price controls are usually enacted in response to what policymakers would consider to be a "market failure," such as the market being unable to provide affordable medicine or affordable housing.

Unfortunately, price controls are a market disruption that lead to disastrous results, such as "reduce quality, the creation of black markets, and stimulating costly rationing" according to the CATO Institute.

As new legislation emerges that enact these controls, consider the unintended consequences. Economist Donald J. Boudreaux of the American Institute for Economic Research has an excellent essay from 2022 detailing why these policies fail.

Unfortunately, many of these policies are popular. But what is popular isn't always right, and what is right isn't always popular. As Milton Friedman once said, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”