Trump Flirts with Price Controls

President Trump’s recent embrace of economic proposals run sharply against free-market orthodoxy, exploring three headline-grabbing ideas: capping credit-card interest rates, banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes, and restricting dividends and stock buybacks by defense contractors. Why is a Republican president is advancing policies more commonly associated with progressive populism? Drawing on economic history, constitutional law, and real-world market behavior, Epstein argues that price controls, capital restrictions, and politicized contracting consistently backfire, harming consumers, workers, and innovation alike. The conversation situates Trump’s proposals within a broader populist strategy, assesses the political incentives behind them, and warns that ignoring basic economic lessons risks repeating some of the most durable policy failures of the past.

You can listen to Trump Flirts with Price Controls online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Trump Flirts with Price Controls is an episode from Libertarian by The Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

This episode is 22:49 long.

This episode was published on Jan 15, 2026.

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