Our Continued Loss Of Freedom, Part 1: The Loss Of Economic Freedom

One of the reasons why America has been such a wonderful experiment in government is because of the many freedoms that the Founders guaranteed via the Constitution and Bill of Rights. America has lifted more people out of poverty and created a legendary middle class that has never been matched anytime in history. Freedom comes in many different ways and each of those ways helps make Americans wealthier and freer to live their lives as they want.

But for the next few days we will be examining how that freedom mission and promise has been severely impaired by the American political class. We have often discussed on how our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom, and other freedoms have been eroded over time by our politicians. And as the next few days will prove, these politicians have continued to impose their will on us and will continue to do so until we will them to stop.

Today will be focusing on how our economic freedom is being stripped away by over taxation and over regulation of the Federal government. And when you think about it, without economic freedom, i.e. the freedom to keep the fruits of our labor, there really cannot be many other kinds of freedom. If you were allowed to keep more of your income and wages, you could:

• Send your kids to better schools.
• More easily start your own business.
• Donate more to charities and needy individuals that you want to help.
• Take more and better vacations.
• Live in a better house or drive a better car.

Without economic freedom, freedom in other parts of your life becomes much more restrictive.

The basis of our economic freedom discussion will be the annual study of economic freedom by country that is conducted by the Heritage Foundation every year. Let’s see where the U.S. falls in their latest analysis:

1) Unfortunately, the latest study shows that the U.S. has slipped all the way down to the 17th position relative to the rest of the world when at one time, not too long ago, the U.S. was one of the most economically free nations in the world. 

2) The top 25 nations look like the following:

1- Hong Kong, trending upward relative to overall economic freedom.
2 - Singapore, trending upward.
3 - New Zealand, trending upward.
4 - Switzerland, trending upward.
5- Australia, trending upward.
6 - Estonia, trending upward.
7 - Canada, trending upward.
8 - United Arab Emirates, trending upward.
9 - Ireland, trending downward.
10 - Chile, trending downward.
11 - Taiwan, trending upward.
12 - Great Britain, flat.
13 - Georgia, trending upward.
14 - Luxembourg, trending upward.
15 - The Netherlands, trending upwards.
16 - Lithuania, trending upward.
17 - United States, trending upward.
18 - Denmark, trending downward.
19 - Sweden, trending upward.
20 - Latvia, trending upward.

3) Observations from the above list include the following:

• Countries with the highest economic freedom overwhelmingly are trending upwards, with the U.S. being one of the few in the top twenty that are trending downwards.
• Many former members (Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania) of the Soviet Union, one of the most economically oppressive regimes ever, are comparable or much better relative to economic freedom than the United States which used to be close to the gold standard for economic freedom.
• Even the United Arab Emirates, a macho Middle East country, is much freer economically than the U.S.
• Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Sweden, and others, often cited by Democrats and liberals as countries we should aspire to, all fall below the U.S., indicating that their economic freedom is even worse than the falling U.S. level of economic freedom.

From one of the freest economic powers in the world we are now lagging behind once former backward economies from Estonia, Georgia, and the United Arab Emirates.

4) For the last four years of the Bush administration, the overall economic freedom index was over 80. Since Obama took office, in just eight years, the U.S. economic freedom index has plunged almost 7% down to about 75. 

5) Back in 2006, Hong Kong was also the most economically free country in the world but the difference between Hong Kong and the U.S. index values were only 7. But by 2017, that difference in index had doubled to 14. Thus, while Hong Kong has maintained its index quite steady over time, the U.S. has steadily lost ground to Hong Kong.

6) Fifteen years ago the U.S. was the 6th most economically free country but has allowed 11 other countries to surpass it in that timeframe.

Thus, given the deterioration in our economic freedom, is there any doubt why we have had to endure the following anemic economic malaise over the past eight years:

• The worst economic recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
• Eight years of GDP economic growth that never broke through to 3% or higher nor attained the long term historical trend line of GDP annual growth.
• Wage and household income growth that has been stagnant during almost the entire Obama Presidency.
• Job creation during the Obama recovery has included mostly temp, contract, and low paying service industry type jobs.

During the Obama administration, the tax burden went up, thousands and thousands of Federal government regulations were added to the economy, and the national debt doubled which led to less and less economic freedom which led to the above horrible economic realities. It is all related and tied together. Unfortunately, as our economic freedom went down, as measured by this economic freedom index, so did our political and individual freedom. And that sucks.

More on our loss of freedom tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

January, 2014 Economic Crises Update, Part 4: Less Economic Freedom, More Government Regulations, More Pessimis About The Future

We were only going to do three posts this month on the economic crises facing the United States but three pieces of information have popped up over the past couple of days that should be included in what we have been discussing, namely that the nation’s economic situation, for the vast majority of Americans, is not good and is generally trending negatively: 

• There are a record number of Americans, over 20 million, that are either unemployed or under employed.
• There are a record number of Americans that are receiving food assistance from the Federal government, almost 50% than when Obama took office.
• Over half of the recent college graduating classes could either not find a job or could not find a job in their area of interest.
• A very high percentage of jobs created over the past few years have been only part time or temporary jobs.
• Household income has dropped steadily over the past five years despite the fact that the recession ended well over three years ago.
• Until recently, official national unemployment levels (U3) had been at record highs for record lengths of time.
• Increased costs of health insurance as a result of Obama Care will likely result in less disposable household income available in the coming years to expand the economy.
• The national debt has jumped to about $17 TRILLION, up over six TRILLION dollars since Obama took office in 2009.
• Monthly trade balance deficits with other countries continue at very high rates.

The first set of new/recent information comes from the latest release of the annual Economic Freedom Index analyses. This index on economic freedom has been done every year by the Heritage Foundation in an attempt to quantify what countries’ citizens live in the freest economies of the world. Over time, there has been a very strong correlation between economic freedom and economic growth and wealth creation, something that is good for the citizens of a nation.

The criteria used to measure economic freedom in the index includes the follwoing parameters:

1. Rule of Law which includes the subcategories of property rights and freedom from corruption
2. Limited Government which includes the subcategories of fiscal freedom and government spending
3. Regulatory Efficiency which includes the subcategories of business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom
4. Open Markets which includes the subcategories of trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom

The website that coontains the details of the entire analysis and which allow you to personally play with and graph different aspects of the data can be found at:

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/United States

For years, the United States Was in the top five of economically free countries int he world, a category that the Heritage Foundation calls "Free." Unfortunately, we have been n a freedom slide for a number of years now, currently residing in the "Mostley Free" category. Highlights and low lights of recent less than stellar performance in this area include the follwing depressing details:

• Since 2006, the United States has seen a substantial drop off in economic freedom, suffering a dramatic decline of almost 6 points, from a an index value of over 81 o the current level of 75.5.
• The main drivers of this declining level of economic freedom have been the especially large losses in property rights, freedom from corruption, and out of control of government spending.
• We are the only country in the world to have recorded a loss of economic freedom in each of the past seven years. 
• The overall U.S. score decline from 1995 to 2014 is 1.2 points, the fourth worst drop among advanced economies.
• According to the Heritage analysis: “Substantial expansion in the size and scope of government, including through new and costly regulations in areas like finance and health care, has contributed significantly to the erosion of U.S. economic freedom. The growth of government has been accompanied by increasing cronyism that has undermined the rule of law and perceptions of fairness.”
• From a top five ranking just several years ago, we now rank number 12.
• We now embarrassingly trail such “economic powerhouses” as Chile, Estonia, and Mauritius.

A pathetic performance that is getting worse, in all likelihood with of declining economic freedom contributing to record high unemployment, declining household income, and other economic maladies. 

But our economic condition should not surprise Heritage. With the Obama administration adding a TRILLION or so to the national debt every year, with taxpayer wealth being wasted on dozens of crony run and ill fated alternative energy companies of Obama, (e.g. Solyndra), the multitude of new taxes and the resulting depression of consumer spending and economic activity because of Obama Care, etc., it is no surprise that the current administration has driven down our economic freedom while driving up our economic pessimism and negative condition.

How pessimistic are we? Consider some recent Gallup poll findings from their periodic “Mood Of The Nation” poll: 

• The poll asks a representative sample of America adults if they are financially better off or worse off than they were a year ago.
• In the latest round of polling, 42% of the respondents said they were financially worse off than they were a year ago while only 35% said they were financially better off.
• The 42% worse off finding was up from 39% in the previous round and up from 34% in the round of polling before that, i.e. financially pessimism seems to be growing.
• The 35% better off finding was down from 40% in the previous round of polling and down from 38% in the round before that, I.e. fewer Americans think they are better off financially than the year before compared to the past two rounds of polling.
• The 42% worse off financially is substantially above the historic average level of worse off financially, about eight percentage points.
• The 35% better off financially is below the historic average level by three percentage points.
• Looking forward to the year ahead, only 55% expect 2014 to be financially better for them, down from 57% in the previous round of polling and down from 63% in the round of polling before that, I.e. optimism of the future is trending downwards
• Looking forward to the year ahead, 42% expect their financial situation to stay the same or get worse, up from 39% in the previous round of polling and 23% in the round of polling before that, I.e. pessimism about the future is growing. 

Economic realities are bad today and our view of our financial status over the past year and one year into the future is not good either.

One last depressing economic fact before we wrap up this four part discussion. In 2013, the Obama administration introduced over 3,500 Federal regulations into our lives. This comes out to almost ten new regulations EVERY DAY for the year 2013. The Federal Registry which tracks government regulations is now over 79,000 pages long.

I contend three things about this atrocious regulation situation:

• 79,000 pages of regulations force businesses and business owners to spend inordinate amounts of time understanding and complying with regulations, taking time and energy away from them improving and expanding their businesses, thus, increasing the job market and the economy.
• The Federal government has gotten so large that probably the vast majority of these regulations are not about protecting the health and interests of Americans but are about creating work and self importance to protect bureaucrats’ jobs and positions.
• The Federal government has been around for hundreds of years. It is highly doubtful that up until this time all previous Presidential administrations were blind and ignorant to the need of having an additional 3,500 regulations put into play in just the past year.

Businesses distracted doing stupid stuff for unnecessary regulations that exist only to justify the existence of highly paid bureaucrats in Washington. More regulations mean less economic freedom, less economic freedom means less economic growth, less economic growth means more pessimism about the financial future, and that is how we get chronically high unemployment, meager job creation, and over 20 million Americans unemployed or under employed. See how it all ties together.

And the saddest  part of all, those in the White House and Congress just do not get it or see how it all ties together. Because if they did, they would not have gotten us into this mess, killing off our optimism about the future, stifling our economic freedom, and killing off growth and initiative with stifling regulations.

The worse thing about their economic ineptness is that where there is no economic freedom, there is not political freedom. And when there is no political freedom, we cease to be a free people enjoying the virtues and benefits of liberty.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Part 5, August, 2013 Political Class Insanity:Congress Approves Spying On Innocent Citizens, Ted Cruz Attacked For Having ..Gasp...Principles, No Longer Economically Free, and More

This is our fifth in this month’s series on political class insanity, our monthly view of how idiotic our current set of politicians have become in their operation of American government at all levels. We are well on our way to setting the one month’s record, currently eight, of blog posts needed to cover all of the lunacy they generate in one month.

Yesterday, we examined how the city of Oahu was likely to become one of the next “Detroits” from a municipal bankruptcy perspective, with its politicians running up high expense with no way to pay for them. We learned that a former mayor of New Orleans was recently indicted, having taken advantage to growth his personal wealth as a consequence of Hurricane Katrina rather than focus on helping his city’s suffering citizens. And finally, we learned how a military weapons program refused to die even thought the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the White House wanted to kill it but corporate lobbying and its money kept it alive.

Well, today prepare for more of the same incompetence, wasted spending, and other lunacy from our current set of politicians.

1) According to the United Liberty website on July 30, 2013, Congressman  Justin Amash was able to cross party lines and combine an impressive number of supporters, from both parties in Congress, to support his amendment to keep the NSA from collecting data from innocent Americans. As you probably know, the Obama administration has been using the NSA to collect just about every piece of electronic communications of every American even though the vast majority of us are doing nothing illegal or wrong. This is a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

In spite of the impressive cross party effort, Congressman Amash’s amendment failed when voted on by just a handful of votes. However, once United Liberty’s researchers, via an organization called MapLight, took a closer look at the election campaign donation data from the top defense contractors in the country, those companies that get rich helping the Obama administration execute these government spying plans,  they found that House members who voted to continue the controversial NSA spy programs and defeat the Amash amendment, reportedly received $41,635 each on average from defense and intelligence firms,  $12.97 million in total form these companies over a 2-year period ending in December 31, 2012.

Not surprisingly the analysis also showed  House members who voted in support of the amendment that addresses the NSA’s illegal, immoral, and despicable citizen  spying programs received a little over $18,700 on average from the same contractors. Thus, just another example where money talks and citizens have either their taxpayer wealth wasted or their freedom and privacy eroded, all for campaign dollars. Disgusting, and another good reason for term limits, an idea that would make reelection campaign funding irrelevant and unnecessary, freeing up politicians to vote for the good of the country and our liberty and not their own careers.

2) A quote from outspoken Texas Senator Ted Cruz that was documented in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine is truly amazing when it comes to politicians not acting within integrity: “We’ve had probably five or six luncheons with a bunch of Republican Senators standing up and looking at Rand [Paul]  and me and yelling at the top of their lungs - I mean really upset. And they say: ‘Why did you do this? As a result of what you did, when I go home, my constituents are yelling at me that I have to stand on principle.” 

What a novel thought! A politician that stands on principle rather than self serving politics. A politician that tries to do the right thing to help the country rather than the things that are most likely to get them reelected. A politician that stands in integrity rather than one that stands in the shadow of people that financially support his perpetual reelection campaign. 

Is it no wonder there is never any progress on problem resolution, that politicians are always caught with their pants down (literally) rather than putting down a major problem. When principled behavior is the exception and not the norm, what we get today in the political class is all that is possible. And that is not much. 

I guess nothing has changed since 2009 when Senator Joseph Lieberman, as quoted in the November 9, 2009 issue of the San Francisco Examiner stated: "I may be at a point in my career that I am going to do what is right and what makes sense." Does this mean that for all of the decades he served in the Washington political class he was only doing stuff that did not make any sense or that was not right? Is only at the end of career he starts to act with principle? Disgusting.

3) Speaking of a lack of principles, consider the actions and words of a Hawaiian politician. I am always amused when politicians, the most divisive set of people in the country when it comes to dividing groups of Americans and pitting them against each other, lectures us on how to behave and not be racist, prejudiced, or hateful. And when they have the opportunity to not divide and not be prejudiced, they turn out to be the biggest culprits. 

According to a short article in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine, Hawaiian state politician Faye Hanohano decreed that when state government workers were hanging pieces of artwork in her office, she did not want any art made by “Haoles, Japs, or Pakes.” These are derogatory words used to describe whites, Japanese, and Chinese. Way to go Ms/ Hanohano, setting the bar for compassion and understanding among different groups of citizens that you serve. Pathetic.

4) We are constantly making our case, quite strongly if I do say so myself, that we are currently be served by the worst and most incompetent set of politicians this country has ever experienced. They waste our wealth, they insult our intelligence with their incompetent and immoral behavior, and they fail to resolve any problem of any  magnitude, with their actions usually making existing problems even worse. 

Data from an article, also in the August, 2013 issue of Reason magazine, shows how poorly they are managing our economy and our freedom relative to the rest of the world.  According to latest Economic Freedom Index, and multivariate measure of how free a country’s economic policies are, the United States index of economic freedom, based on a scale of zero to ten, was 8.65 in 2000, 8.21 in 2005 and has plummeted down to 7.70 in 2010.

Where the United States used to constantly have the third best economic freedom performance in the world, the latest analysis puts our economic freedom at a disappointing 18th in the world. Maybe, just maybe, as the American political class has gone about reducing our freedom, raising our taxes, spending our children’s and grandchildren’s future wealth by running up $17 trillion in national debt, and over regulating the economy, contributing to our 18th place ranking, that is why our unemployment stays so high and over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. 

And this performance and ranking helps reinforce our theory that these politicians currently in office, against any standard or benchmark, are quite possibly the worst our nation has ever endured.

5) The good news that is not really good news. The good news is that America is no longer the fattest country in the world. According to a blurb in the July 19, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, Mexico now has the fattest citizens in the world, with 32.8% of its citizens being classified as obese. 

Unfortunately, Americans have not gotten skinny all of a sudden. The same blurb pointed out that an unacceptable 31. 8% of American adults are classified as obese. This is a main driver of our high health care costs in this country since obesity leads to all kinds of unnecessary health care maladies and the associated costs including diabetes and heart disease.

Despite its heavy influence on high health care costs, Obama Care does virtually nothing to attack and minimize this root cause, a piece of insanity we relive and review every month in the coming disaster known as Obama Care.

6) And finally for today, one last little fib from the Obama administration. An article in the May 31, 2013 issue of The Week magazine pointed out again how President Obama had promised in 2008 that his administration would be the most transparent administration ever, according to the article his administration has prosecuted twice as many whistle blowers and secret leakers than ALL other Presidential administrations COMBINED. 

I would hate to se how bad it would be if his was not the most transparent administration ever (sarcasm implied).

That does it for today but not for this month’s political class insanity. More to follow at least for a couple of more days as we try to identify all of the lunacy and idiocy flowing out from our politicians. Until then, if you agree with us that we are currently living under the worst set of politicians of all time, please visit our term limits website and join our cause to rid the country of career politicians and replace them with concerned citizens:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

American Economic Freedom - Slowly Ebbing Away

Every year, the Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal, conducts a very, very extensive analysis of economic freedom around the world along ten different factors of measurement. The analysis is country specific and factor specific within each country. All of their analyses result in a rank ordering of many countries via what they call the Index Of Economic Freedom. The higher the index, the more economic freedom exists within that nation, as measured by the ten factors.

The ten factors include the following measurements and results:

• Under Rule of Law, there are the two factors, Property Rights and Freedom From Corruption.
• Under Regulatory Efficiency, there are three factors, Business Freedom, Labor Freedom, and Monetary Freedom.
• Under Limited Government, there are two factors, Government Spending and Fiscal Freedom.
• Under Open Markets, there are three factors, Trade Freedom, Investment Freedom, and Financial Freedom.

The detailed findings for their 2012 report can be accessed and the the data reviewed at http://www.heritage.org/index/. You will see that they are comprehensive, thorough, and quantitatively impressive in their detailed work and analyses.

Their final output for each country consists of index calculations for each of the ten factors along with an overall index that statistically and soundly combines the nation's ten individual indices into one total national index measure. They also determine where each measure falls along a separate measure of freedom that contains five levels, ranging from Free to Moderately Free down to Repressive.

Why is this study important? The analysts who put this annual study together have found that if you graph a nation's per capita wealth on the vertical axis of a graph vs. a nation's Index of Economic Freedom on the horizontal axis, you find that there is an almost 70% positive correlation between citizens' wealth and economic freedom within the country, i.e. richer countries with richer citizens tend to also have higher Indices Economic Freedom.

Obviously, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. However, there probably is a strong causation link between free people operating in free markets, an environment that tends to optimize economic behavior and activity vs. unfree citizens living under repressive regimes where much economic decisions and activity are tightly controlled by either incompetent tyrants or bureaucrats. If you look at their findings year in and year out, you will probably not find a highly efficient, free, and productive economy that is also run by a repressive government.

In the 2012 report, there is bad news for the United States in several areas. First, why we may think of ourselves living in the freest country in the world, according to this analysis approach, that is a false assumption. Our Index of Economic Freedom has never been ranked number one and unfortunately, it has been slipping on a year over year basis for several years now. The following graph lays out what our total Index Of Economic Freedom has been over time (in this graph, the smaller the number the higher/better the ranking of the U.S. relative to other countries):

You can double click on the graph to get a better, larger view. The vertical line between 2006 and 2007 represents the 2006 midterm elections where the Democrats took over control of both parts of Congress.

What conclusions can we draw from these historical results:

1. Our economic freedom generally improved during the Bush administration, getting down to being fifth ranked for a couple of years vs. being generally in the seventh to eighth position during the Clinton years.
2. Our ranking has mostly gotten worse since the Democrats took over Congress in late 2006.
3. The last three years illustrate a disturbing trend with our Index Of Economic Freedom overall index steadily trending negatively since 2008's report.
4. In fact, our Index of Economic Freedom has never been worse, as measured by our ninth place rating in the 2011 report and our tenth place rating in the 2012 report.
5. Furthermore, for the first time ever, an African country actually has a higher Index of Economic Freedom ranking higher than ours.

Not a good overall trend. Again, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. But given that the past three years have shown a deteriorating Index of Economic Freedom ranking performance at the same time that U.S. unemployment remains stubbornly high, household average incomes have fallen steadily over the past few years, and economic growth is weak vs. historical performance, it does appear there is some substantial causation at work.

Thus, not only is our overall economic freedom definitely getting worse, and possibly impacting the negative economic world we live in today in this country, some of the ten underlying economic freedom factors are not that great either and are also trending negatively. For the U.S., our ten underlying factors look like the following in the 2012 report:

• Business Freedom - Steady results, above the world average, and in the "Free" category. (Note- the "Free" category is the best category you can fall into)
• Trade Freedom - Steady results, above the world average, and in the "Free" category.
• Labor Freedom - Steady results, above the world average, and in the "Free" category.

Not bad. However, things do not look as rosy for the U.S. in the remaining seven categories:

• Fiscal Freedom - Steady results, below the world average, and in the "Mostly Free" category. (Note - the "Mostly Free" category is a step down in freedom from the "Free" category)
• Monetary Freedom - Worsening results, about at the world average, and in the "Mostly Free" category.
• Investment Freedom - Worsening results, above the world average, and in the "Mostly Free" category.
• Financial Freedom - Worsening results, above the world average, and in the "Mostly Free" category.
• Property Rights - Worsening results, above the world average, and in the "Moderately Free" category. (Note - the "Moderately Free is a negative step down from "Mostly Free")

Not good. We are either below or only at the world average, results are trending negatively, or we have dropped out of the top freedom category already in these important category/factors of freedom.

But we are in very horrible shape in the remaining two categories:

• Freedom From Corruption - Worsening quickly, above the world average, and only "Moderately Free."
• Government Spending - Worsening quickly, below the world average, and already in the Repressive category (Note - the "Repressive" category is the worst freedom category a nation can fall into relative to economic freedom)

Really, really not good. Our performances in these two categories are almost in free fall and who would have ever thought that someone could analytically and accurately describe any facet of the United States government and democracy being in the "Repressive" state?

In the Freedom From Corruption factor, in only ten years our nation's situation has dropped over 13%, taking us from the Free to the Mostly Free category. If you look at the detailed national ratings, there are twenty one nations that outperform us from a Freedom From Corruption perspective. The going forward concern is that the trend is not good, in a few years we could easily fall further down the freedom scale and trail more countries who have less government corruption than us.

Here is what the report says about U.S. corruption: "Corruption is a growing concern as the cronyism and economic rent-seeking associated with the growth of government have undermined institutional integrity." Given the high level of annual wasteful Federal government earmarks and the growing government cronyism under the Obama administration (e.g. Solyndra, Beacon, Fisker, Tesla, General Electric, etc.), it is not surprising that we should now be embarrassed by our Federal political class. Now the whole world knows how bad we are.

Where we are really bad is in the area of Government Spending. We are officially in the "Repressive" area of the freedom scale, a very dangerous area. We are so bad as a nation that there are many more countries in the study who are in better shape than us.

At least six Third World countries (Turkmenistan, Uganda, Madagascar, Guatemala, Burma, and Bangladesh) are not only in better shape than the U.S. but their index scores are DOUBLE what our score is. The top two overall countries in the study, Hong Kong and Singapore, have overall index scores that are also double our nation's score in this area. Pathetic performance no matter how you look at it.

Remember what we have stressed many times in this blog: you cannot have political freedom and freedom of choice without economic freedom. If your economic freedom gets worse, than you have less freedom of choice to send your kids to the best schools, less freedom of choice to live in the type of house and neighborhood you would prefer to live in, less freedom of choice to contribute to the charities of your choice, etc. This is why economic freedom is so important.

This study should be viewed as a leading indicator of where we are going from both a democracy and an economic perspective. Our political class through the decades, both Republicans and Democrats, have allowed both to deteriorate to such an extent that we now have a substantial and growing government corruption problem and our government spending situation is so bad that it is orders of magnitude worse than such economic powerhouses as Burma and Bangladesh. 

Now is it any surprise that our economic growth is horrible, our unemployment and underemployment rates are stubbornly high, we are susceptible to economic problems elsewhere in he world, consumer confidence in our nation's future and our leaders are at all time lows, and our political class have no intention, will, or ability to resolve our nation's issues?

That is why two steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are critical to fix what ails our country, if the results from this study are to be believed:

- Step 1 - this step would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years if we are to have any chance of getting our Federal government spending under control and start to reduce our onerous national debt. Many times we have shown how to reduce government spending by TRILLIONS of dollars, based on the work of many fine American organizations, including Obama's own deficit reduction commission. To say Step 1 cannot be done is a reflection on the incompetence of our politicians, not the reality that we have described for finding the solution.

- Step 39 - this step would impose firm term limits on all current and future Federal politicians. It is obvious from this study that we can no longer afford to allow the current set of politicians to continue in power. Their results are putrid and corrupt, the direction they have set the country on is disastrous.

Prior to implementing Step 39, we can begin the purging process by voting out all incumbents in the November elections. This includes President Obama and every single member of Congress and the House of Representatives who are up for reelection. Not a single one of them have come up with a plan, particularly President Obama, to address our rotting Index Of Economic Freedom. They do not deserve the privilege of serving the nation.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/.

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/