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In Washington, it’s easy to get swept up in the policy debate of the day. But if you spend a few weeks on a bus traveling through America’s cities and small towns, you’ll quickly realize most people aren’t keeping tabs on every legislative battle. They’re trying to figure out why life seems to cost more than it used to at every turn.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Free Enterprise Express Opportunity Tour has covered over 9,000 miles over the last several weeks, and one lesson keeps repeating itself: Americans feel squeezed by costs, both those they can see and those they can’t.
At the top of the list of costs consumers can’t see are the legal-system abuses fueled and funded by secretive third-party funders and all-too-willing portions of the predatory trial bar who are prioritizing their own obscene profits over the affordability needs of American families and small businesses.
Those hidden costs may begin in courtrooms and policy debates, but their effects follow families and businesses far beyond Washington.
When the bus left our Washington headquarters, we went immediately outside the Beltway to Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
To get to each stop, that bus had to navigate through the congested highways and potholes that every commuter, business owner, and employee deals with every day.
But potholes aren’t the only hidden hazards on the road to growth. A civil justice system distorted by lawsuit abuse can be just as costly.
The trial bar’s stranglehold on the civil justice system is quietly squeezing businesses and consumers every day. Abusive litigation doesn’t just hurt the companies with office buildings full of lawyers and cash reserves to match. Instead, it hits the small manufacturer, the family-owned restaurant, and the independent contractor who can’t afford to fight and can’t afford to settle.
And consumers also face higher prices when businesses are forced to pass along the costs of excessive litigation.
When the legal system starts to feel more like a lottery than a safeguard, businesses stop taking risks. When businesses stop taking risks, communities stop growing.
Free enterprise isn’t merely the absence of government interference. It requires rules that reward investment, innovation, and responsible risk-taking. A legal system that increasingly rewards speculative litigation over legitimate claims undermines those foundations just as surely as burdensome regulation or excessive taxation.
The U.S. Chamber has documented that the average American household bears $4,200 in hidden costs, driven by excessive regulation, lawsuit abuse, and government overreach, and we expect that number to only increase until significant reforms occur. That is money out of real pockets, in real communities, that could have gone toward groceries, a mortgage payment, a child’s tuition, or a small business investment.
Our stops in New York brought this into sharp focus. The Empire State has long faced some of the highest car insurance rates in the nation. This problem is driven in no small part by a well-documented culture of staged collisions and insurance fraud that drives up premiums for honest drivers. It is one example of what happens when bad actors exploit legal and regulatory gaps while everyone else pays the price.
Fortunately, legal reform works. In 2023, Florida enacted meaningful tort reform, reining in one-way attorney fee arrangements and third-party litigation financing that had turned the Sunshine State into a plaintiff’s paradise. Some Florida policyholders have seen nearly $1,000 in returns, which is a direct and measurable result of changes to the civil justice system. That is what the benefits of reform can look like when it is taken seriously.
But reform only succeeds when people understand what is at stake. Lawsuit abuse is one part of a broader web of hidden costs imposed by misguided policy and government overreach. Across the country, the details vary, but the result is the same: Hardworking Americans get squeezed.
That is why we are taking the case for free enterprise directly to the people — into the communities where these debates have real consequences, where policy decisions determine monthly bills, storefront closures, and whether businesses get off the ground.
The best argument is not an economic model or policy paper. It is a thriving small business, a family that can afford the lives they deserve, and a neighborhood store that can keep its doors open so families can buy affordable groceries.
FLORIDA TOOK ON THE BILLBOARD LAWYERS. NOW, POLICYHOLDERS ARE GETTING $760 CHECKS
The closer one gets to real businesses and real communities, the harder it becomes to defend policies that make growth more difficult and opportunity more expensive.
That’s a lesson Washington could stand to learn from the road.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
