Read more about United States Economy.
See more from the 2013 Index.
The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have teamed up once again to publish a fascinating look at economic freedom across the globe. Each year, these two groups release what they call their “Index of Economic Freedom.” They measure data in four overall categories — rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets — to produce a score that reflects the level of economic freedom each country enjoys. Once each country has been scored, they are ranked and then classified as “free,” “mostly free,” “moderately free,” “mostly unfree,” or “repressed.”
According to The Heritage Foundation, “Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state.”
Unsurprisingly, many of the world’s most prosperous economies rank high on the Index of Economic Freedom, while the most impoverished nations find themselves mired under harsh economic restrictions.
The startling fact for Americans though is that economic freedom in the United States is waning. To put it plainly, our economic freedom rating has been dropping precipitously since 2009 when President Obama took office. Since then, the U.S. has declined from being categorized as a “free” economy to a “mostly free” economy. And this year, the U.S. slipped all the way to 10th.
This is hardly acceptable for a nation who for over two centuries has prided itself in being the beacon of freedom and prosperity to the rest of the world.
According to Heritage, “One reason for America’s lack of freedom is that its scores on regulatory efficiency have dropped… over 100 new major federal regulations have been imposed on business operations since early 2009 with annual costs of more than $46 billion.”
It’s no wonder our unemployment rate continues to hover at high levels for long periods of time — our job creators are being crushed under the weight of government regulations.
Until conservatives stand up to Washington’s assault on our liberties, we will continue our decline.
