The Los Angeles Rams announced they were moving to St Louis. President Clinton gave Mexico $20 billion to bail out the peso. Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson married rock-n-roll bad boy Tommy Lee. And, the Index of Economic Freedom made its debut.
It was 1995.
This month, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation published the 20th edition of the Index. Its findings starkly rebut President Obama’s State of the Union assertion that “opportunity is who we are.”
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As for his claim that “the defining project of our geneation is to restore that promise [of opportunity]. We know where to start” … well, the index suggests otherwise. At least when it comes to this administration.
In every year of the Obama presidency, America has lost ground in economic freedom. When Mr. Obama first entered the Oval Office, the U.S. ranked sixth in the world. This year it dropped out of the Top 10, tumbling into 12th place.
Indeed, economic freedom has declined for seven straight years in America, and it’s the longest losing streak of any nation in the world. We are no longer even counted among the world’s “free” economies. Two years ago, the Index reported that the U.S. had become merely the land of the “mostly free.”
The Bush-era recession can’t be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. That recession’s impact spread worldwide. Other nations had to grapple with the same challenges, and did so far more successfully.
The president’s speech might lead you to believe the decline results from all the stuff Washington hasn’t done. But that’s got it completely backwards. All of the government initiatives pushed through by the administration — higher taxes, even greater spending and vast new regulatory regimes–have acted like a giant millstone weighing down the American economy.
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