The 2016 Economic Freedom Index was released this week. The Index
measures nations on ten key criteria:
(1) property rights, (2) freedom from corruption, (3) fiscal freedom,
(4)
government spending, (5) business freedom, (6), labor freedom, (7) monetary
freedom, (8) trade freedom,
(9)
investment freedom, and (10) financial freedom. I found it very interesting that the Index was
“released on the same day the national debt topped $19 trillion for the first
time in the nation’s history.”
The United States of America did
not make the top ten countries with the most economic freedom. According to this index the top ten economically
free countries are: (1) Hong Kong, (2)
Singapore, (3) New Zealand, (4) Switzerland, (5) Australia, (6) Canada, (7) Chile,
(8) Ireland, (9) Estonia, and (10) United Kingdom. The USA is in 11th place out of
approximately 200 nations.
How could that happen in so few
years? The USA was in 6th place when Barack Obama took office. How can any sane person claim we are
better off today than we were seven years ago?
According to Representative Dave Brat (R-Va) one of the reasons that the United States ended the year at #11 is “because of
slower than normal economic growth, citing trillions of dollars’ worth of
unfunded liabilities and an annual federal budget deficit projected to reach
$544 billion by the end of Fiscal Year 2016…. You cannot have economic growth
without economic freedom.”
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