Ranking the States for Economic and Personal Freedom

Sometimes I myopically focus on fiscal policy, implying that the key to prosperity is small government.

But I’ll freely admit that growth is maximized when you have small government AND free markets.

That being said, our goal should be to expand freedom, not merely to have the largest possible GDP.

Which is why the Freedom Index is a good complement to Economic Freedom of the World.

It shows, for instance, that Singapore may be ranked #2 for economic freedom, but it is only #39 when you look at all freedoms.

We also have a comprehensive ranking of economic and personal freedom for the 50 states.

Here are the full rankings from the newly released Freedom in the 50 States from the Mercatus Center, showing North Dakota as the state with the most freedom, with South Dakota (#2), Tennessee (#3), New Hampshire (#4), and Oklahoma (#5) also deserving praise for high scores.

What makes Freedom in the 50 States so interesting is that you can mix and match variables based on your own preferences.

I checked the “fiscal” and “tax burden” categories, and South Dakota (no state income tax!) jumped to #1 for both of those measures.

You won’t be surprised to learn that New York is the worst state, not only overall, but also for various fiscal policy measures.

Who would have guessed, by the way, that there’s a “bachelor party” category based on laws governing alcohol, marijuana, prostitution, and fireworks. Interesting, Massachusetts is ranked #1, though I suspect most guys will still opt for #3-ranked Nevada.

P.S. I must be learning. I grew up in New York, which is #50 in the rankings of freedom in the states, and then in Connecticut, which ranks only #40. But I went to college in Georgia, which is #9 in the rankings, and I now live in the Virginia, which is #8. But I somehow doubt that I’ll ever wind up in North Dakota.

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which State Has the Highest Food Stamp Usage of All?

The food stamp program seems to be a breeding ground of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some of the horror stories I’ve shared include:

• Using food stamps to buy luxury coffee at Starbucks.
• Buying steaks and lobster with food stamps.
• The Obama Administration rewarding states that sign up more food stamp recipients.
• Proposals to make it easier to use food stamps at fast food restaurants.
• College kids scamming the program for handouts.
• New York City giving food stamps to newly released prisoners and running foreign-language ads encouraging more people to sign up for the program.
• The Octo-Mom mooching off the food stamp program.
• The Agriculture Department running radio ads to lure more people into food stamp dependency.

With stories like this, I’m surprised my head didn’t explode during this debate I did on Larry Kudlow’s show.

So exactly how bad is the food stamp program?

One way of measuring the cost of the program, both to taxpayers and to the people who get trapped in dependency, is to see what share of a state’s population is utilizing the program.

I just did a “Mirror, Mirror” post on states with the most education bureaucrats compared to teachers and got a lot of good feedback, so let’s do the same thing for food stamps.

Here’s a rather disturbing map from the Washington Post.

A couple of things stand out. I can understand Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico being among the worst states because they have relatively low average incomes. And that’s sort of an excuse for Tennessee, though it’s worth noting that economically and demographically similar states such as Georgia and Alabama don’t fall into the same dependency trap.

Why such a significant handout culture?

But the state that stands out is Oregon. Based on the state’s income, there’s no reason for more than 20 percent of resident’s to be on the dole. The state does get a “high” ranking on the Moocher Index, so there’s some evidence of an entitlement mentality. And welfare handouts also are above average in the Beaver State as well.

It’s also disappointing to see that food stamp dependency has doubled since 2008 in Florida, Rhode Island, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Though it’s a credit to the people of Utah that they’re still in the least-dependent category. But the trend obviously is very bad.

And it’s also depressing to look at the bar chart on the right and see that spending on the program has tripled in the past 10 years. Heck, food stamps were about 70 percent of the cost of a recent Senate “farm bill.”

P.S. A local state legislator asked an official in Richmond why Virginia got such a bad score in the ranking of teachers compared to education bureaucrats. The good news, so to speak, is that Virginia is not as bad as suggested by the official numbers. According to the response sent to this lawmaker, “VDOE has determined that the data it reported on school division personnel and assignments to NCES for 2005-2006 through 2009-2010 through the US Department of Education’s EdFacts Portal were inaccurate.”

The bad news, as you can see from this table, is that there are still more edu-crats than teachers, but the ratio apparently isn’t as bad with this updated data.

As a Virginia taxpayer, I suppose I should be happy. But it’s hard to get overly excited when other states are taking positive steps to bring choice and competition to education, and the best thing I can say about the Old Dominion is that we’re not quite as infested with bureaucrats as we originally thought.

P.P.S. I guess I should give the left-wing Washington Post some credit for sharing the map on food stamp dependency. And, to be fair, the paper did reprint this remarkable chart showing how bad Obama’s record is on jobs compared to Reagan and Clinton. And the paper also printed this chart showing how the economy’s performance is way below average under Obama.

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, which State Has the Most Bureaucrats Compared to Teachers of Them All

I like rankings and maps because you get to see a lot of information in a single image.

I’ve shared some maps making very interesting international comparisons.

• Which nations have the most red ink.
• Which nations are money laundering centers (hint, not tax havens).
• A crazy left-wing “Happy Planet” map.
• Another silly map supposedly showing that America is one of the world’s most authoritarian nations.

Here are some good state maps with useful information.

• Which states have no income taxes.
• Which states give the highest welfare payments.
• Which states are in a “death spiral” because of too many takers and too few makers.

And I even have a local map.

• How many of the nation’s richest counties are in the D.C. metro region.

Now we have a map, based on some research from the Friedman Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, showing which states have the most education bureaucrats compared to actual educators.

I’m ashamed that my state of Virginia is the worst in the nation. Maybe paying for this bureaucratic bloat explains why our Governor recently broke his promise and imposed a huge tax increase.

I’m also shocked that Illinois is one of the best states in the nation, at least by this measure. Though I suspect this is the exception to the rule and the Prairie State will still be neck and neck with California in the race to bankruptcy.

Though Illinois is much closer to the bottom than to the top in the “Moocher Index,” so maybe it’s not as bad as we think.

P.S. If you like this “educrat” ranking, here’s a “Poverty Pimp” ranking of “public welfare” bureaucrats compared to state population. Ohio and Alaska do poorly in both, for what it’s worth.

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The United States Ranks 7th in Comprehensive New “Freedom Index”

I’ve always been a big fan of Economic Freedom of the World because it provides a balanced and neutral measure of which nations do best in providing free markets and small government.

And I like it even when it gives me bad news. It’s somewhat depressing, after all, to read that the United States has dropped from the #3 nation when Bill Clinton left office to the #18 country in the most recent index.

But for all its many positive attributes, Economic Freedom of the World isn’t a comprehensive measure of liberty. That’s why I’m very glad to see that Ian Vasquez and Tanja Stumberger have put together a Freedom Index designed to measure economic and personal liberty.

And since they’re both sensible people, their definition of personal liberty is very sound – i.e., the freedom to be left alone and not harassed, persecuted, or annoyed by government.

Here’s their description of what the Freedom Index is designed to measure.

…we use indicators that are as consistent as possible with the concept of negative liberty: the absence of coercive constraint on the individual. We do not attempt to measure positive freedom…nor do we measure so-called “claim freedoms,” which often become government-imposed attempts at realizing positive freedoms (e.g., the “right” or freedom to a have job or housing). …This index of freedom also does not incorporate measures of democracy or “political freedom.” …Democracy may be more consistent than other forms of government at safeguarding freedom, but it is not freedom, nor does it necessarily guarantee freedom. …We combine economic freedom measures from the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index with measures of what we somewhat imprecisely call civil or personal  freedoms. The economic freedom index and the personal freedom index we devise each receive half the weight in the overall index.

Here are some additional details on the personal freedom score.

For the personal freedom sub-index, we use 34 variables covering 123 countries… The index is divided into four categories: 1) Security and  Safety; 2) Freedom of Movement; 3) Freedom of Expression; and 4) Relationship Freedoms. …We have tried to capture the degree to which  people are free to enjoy the major civil liberties—freedom of speech, religion, and association and assembly—in each country in our survey.  In addition, we include indicators of crime and violence, freedom of movement, and legal discrimination against homosexuals.

So how do nations compare with this system?

New Zealand is the nation with the most freedom, followed by the Netherlands and Hong Kong. The United States is #7

By the way, if you’re wondering about places to avoid on your next overseas vacation, Zimbabwe is in last place, followed by Burma and Pakistan.

And if you want to maximize your personal liberty, but aren’t as concerned about economic liberty, the top nations are the Netherlands (9.5), Uruguay (9.4), and Norway/Japan/New Zealand (9.2).

If you want to experiment with a life of very limited personal liberty, your “best” choices are Pakistan (3.1), Zimbabwe (3.2), Sri Lanka (3.4), and Iran (3.6).

Last but not least, here’s the video I narrated from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity that explains in more detail the economic-freedom component of the Freedom Index.

Hmmm…more growth and prosperity with free markets and small government. Such a novel concept!

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The “Happy Planet Index” Ranks Venezuela, Albania, and Cuba Far Higher than the United States

Rankings can be very useful tools, assuming the methodology is reasonable and the authors use robust data. I’ve cited many of them.

• For a big-picture look at economic policy, the Economic Freedom of the World is the best ranking, though the Index of Economic Freedom is also quite good, and the Global Competitiveness Report also is useful.
• On tax policy, the Financial Secrecy Index measures how well a nation treats foreign investors, while the Tax Oppression Index measures how well a nation treats its own people.
• There are also more specialized rankings, such as the one measuring per-capita government debt, the Moocher Index of state-by-state government dependency, and my ranking of which President has been the biggest spender.

But I’ve also run into some really strange rankings since starting this blog, some of which are preposterous and others of which are rather subjective.

• One group claimed that America is one of the world’s most authoritarian nations.
• The statists at the OECD put together a ranking asserting that poverty is a bigger problem in the United States than in Greece, Portugal, or Turkey.
• A poll of world travelers ranked which nations had the most attractive people.
• In a 2010 ranking of influence in the world of global finance, the FCI 500 placed me higher than either George Soros or Paul Krugman.

That last one was good for my ego. My only comment is that I wish that I had real influence.

Speaking of preposterous rankings, I have something new for the list.

There’s a group that puts out something called the “Happy Planet Index,” which supposedly is a “global measure of sustainable well-being.”

But it’s really an anti-energy consumption ranking, modified by life expectancy data along with some subjective polling data about lifestyles. And it leads to some utterly absurd conclusions.

Here’s their map of the world. All you really need to know is that it’s supposedly bad to be a red country.

I’m perfectly willing to agree that people in Afghanistan and Angola are not part of a “happy planet,” but do they really expect people to believe that the United States is in the bottom category?

I’m not being jingoistic. Yes, I am a patriot in the right sense of the word, so I would like the United States to be at the top of most rankings.

But my job is to criticize bad public policy, so my life would be rather dull if the crowd in Washington adopted a much-needed policy of benign neglect for the economy.

My real gripe is that some of the world’s main cesspools get high rankings. The United States is 105th according to the clowns who put together the rankings, while Cuba somehow came in 12th place.

Venezuela also ranks near the top, and other jurisdictions that score at least 50 places above America include Albania, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Moldova, and Tajikistan.

It’s not just that those nations all rank about the United States. They also are ahead of Sweden, Canada, Australia, Iceland, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

And I’d rather live in any of those nations than live in any of the ones I listed that got good scores according to the poorly named Happy Planet Index.

Heck, I’d also prefer to live in some of the nations that score even lower than the United States, such as Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, or Luxembourg.

The Luxembourg ranking is particularly absurd. It is down near the bottom, with a ranking of 138 and trailing such garden spots as Burkina Faso and the Congo.

But it also happens to be one of the world’s richest nations according to World Bank data, in part because it is a very good tax haven.

But the nuts who put together the Crazy Planet Index give Luxembourg the second-to-worst ranking for its “ecological footprint,” and I guess you’re supposed to be unhappy if you have enough wealth to use a lot of energy.

Gee, too bad Luxembourg couldn’t be more like the nations that get the highest rankings for their “ecological footprint.” The people of Afghanistan and Haiti must be very, very happy about that high honor.

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The United States Plummets to 18th in New Economic Freedom of the World Rankings

Wow. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the United States dropped in the new rankings unveiled today in Economic Freedom of the World.

But I’m somewhat shocked to learn that we fell from 10th last year all the way down to 18th this year, as can be seen on the chart (click to enlarge).

Last year, the U.S. fell from 7th to 10th, and I though dropping three spots was bad. But falling by eight spots this past year is a stunning decline.

Who would have thought that Scandinavian welfare states such as Denmark and Finland would rank higher than the United States? Or that Ireland, with all its problems, would be above America?

But since I’m not a misery-loves-company guy, I’m happy to see some nations doing well. I’ve previously highlighted the good policies in Hong Kong and Singapore. And I’ve trumpeted the good policies in Switzerland and Australia, as well as Canada, Chile, and Estonia.

So kudos to the leaders in those nations.

American politicians, by contrast, deserve scorn. Let’s update the chart I posted when last year’s report was issued.

As you can see, it’s an understatement to say that the United States is heading in the wrong direction. We’re still considerably ahead of interventionist welfare states such as France and Italy, though I’m afraid to think about what the U.S. score will be five years from now.

Here’s what the authors of the report had to say about America’s decline.

The United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a substantial decline in economic freedom during the past decade. From 1980 to 2000, the United States was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. After increasing steadily during the period from 1980 to 2000, the chainlinked EFW rating of the United States fell from 8.65 in 2000 to 8.21 in 2005 and 7.70 in 2010. The chain-linked ranking of the United States has fallen precipitously from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010 (unadjusted ranking of 18th).

For those interested in why the United States has dropped, the “size of government” score has fallen from 8.65 in 2000 to 7.70 in the latest report. That’s not a surprise since the burden of government spending has exploded during the Bush-Obama years.

But the trade score also dropped significantly over the same period, from 8.78 to 7.65. So the protectionists should be happy, even though the rest of us have less prosperity.

The most dramatic decline, though, was the in the “legal system and property rights” category, where the U.S. plummeted from 9.23 in 2000 down to 7.12 in the new report. We’re not quite Argentina (3.76!), to be sure, but the trend is very troubling.

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Another Dismal Assessment of Obamanomics: United States Drops to 7th in WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index

Every year, I look forward to the annual releases of both Economic Freedom of the World and the Index of Economic Freedom. With their comprehensive rankings, these two publications enable interested parties to compare nations and see which countries are moving in the right direction.

As an American, I’m ashamed to say that these publications also show which nations are moving in the wrong direction. And the United States ranks poorly by this metric, having dropped from 3rd place to 10th place since 2000 according to Economic Freedom of the World.

The U.S. also has dropped to 10th place in the Index of Economic Freedom, and is now ranked only as a “mostly free” nation.

Some people dismiss these pieces of data because the two rankings are considered to reflect a pro-free market bias.

But the folks at the World Economic Forum surely can’t be pigeonholed as a bunch of small-government libertarians, and the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report shows the same trend.

The United States took the top spot in the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index as recently as 2007 and 2008, but then dropped to 2nd place in 2009.

I think Bush bears the full blame for that unfortunate development. But the decline has continued in recent years, and Obama deserves a good part of the blame for the drop to 4th place in 2010.

The U.S. then fell to 5th place last year, in part because of horrible scores for “Wastefulness of Government Spending” (68th place) and “Burden of Government Regulation” (49th place).

Given this dismal trend, I opened the just-released 2012 Report with considerable trepidation. And my fears were justified. The United States has now dropped to 7th place.

Here is some of what was said about America.

The United States continues the decline that began a few years ago, falling two more positions to take 7th place this year. Although many structural features continue to make its economy extremely productive, a number of escalating and unaddressed weaknesses have lowered the US ranking in recent years. …some weaknesses in particular areas have deepened since past assessments. The business community continues to be critical toward public and private institutions (41st). In particular, its trust in politicians is not strong (54th), perhaps not surprising in light of recent political disputes that threaten to push the country back into recession through automatic spending cuts. Business leaders also remain concerned about the government’s ability to maintain arms-length relationships with the private sector (59th), and consider that the government spends its resources relatively wastefully (76th). A lack of macroeconomic stability continues to be the country’s greatest area of weakness (111th, down from 90th last year).

For people who like to look at the glass as being 1/10th full, the U.S. does beat Portugal (116ht place) in the score for macroeconomic stability.

Here are a few additional highlights. Or lowlights might be a better word.

• The U.S. scores 42nd in property rights, behind Namibia and Uruguay.
• The U.S. ranks 59th in government favoritism, behind Guinea and Bolivia.
• The U.S. scores 76th in wastefulness in government spending, behind Mali and Nicaragua.
• The U.S. also is 76th in the burden of government regulation, behind Kenya and Thailand.
• The U.S. scores 69th in extent of taxation, behind Gambia and Ethiopia.
• The U.S. ranks 103rd for total tax rate, behind Greece (!) and Philippines.

Now time for some caveats. The WEF report is based on survey results, for better or worse, and it also probably is best characterized as a measure of the attitudes of the business community rather than an estimate of economic freedom.

Regardless of limitations, though, it is a good publication. As such, it is downright embarrassing to see the U.S. fare so poorly in key indices – particularly when third-world nations score better.

We know that small government and free markets are the keys to prosperity. Bush took us in the wrong direction, however, and Obama is repeating his mistakes.

So don’t be surprised to see the American score decline further as additional reports are issued.

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Welcome Instapundit readers. Thanks, Glenn. Since the declining score in the U.S. is partly due to poor fiscal policy, you may want to peruse this video primer on the size of government.

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A Humorous Look at Obama’s Screwy Budget Math

I’ve been quite involved in the debate over which Presidents were big spenders.

I started with an analytical post that crunched the data from the Office of Management and Budget, and I showed that Obama was only a fiscal conservative if you ignored the budget impact of the TARP bailout.

I then augmented that analysis with a second post showing in more detail that Obama deserves a bad grade because of spending on social welfare programs.

Last but not least, my most recent post stated that Bush also was a big spender and I cited Jonah Goldberg’s excellent column suggesting that Romney should admit that Republicans bear some blame for the fiscal mess in Washington.

So we’ve been entirely too serious about this topic. Time for some cartoons! We’ll start with this gem from Eric Allie.

Now let’s look at a good one from Lisa Benson. The dirt being swept under the carpet is TARP, of course.

I think that’s the first cartoon I’ve used from Mr. Allie, but I have shared Ms. Benson’s work before. You can find some of my favorites here, here, here and here.

P.S. Getting back to the serious issue, much of the debate over Obama’s spending record revolves around TARP, but there’s also some discussion of how to divvy up blame for spending in Bush’s last fiscal year (FY2009, which began October 1, 2008). You can find some of my analysis on that issue here and here.

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Which President Is the Biggest Spender, Part II

Last week, I jumped into the surreal debate about whether Obama has been the most fiscally conservative president in recent history.

I sliced the historical data from the Office of Management and Budget a couple of ways, showing that overall spending has grown at a relatively slow rate during the Obama years. Adjusted for inflation, both total spending and primary spending (total spending minus interest payments) have been restrained.

So does this make Obama a fiscal conservative?

And how can these numbers make sense when the President saddled the nation with the faux stimulus and Obamacare?

Good questions. It turns out that Obama supposed frugality is largely the result of how TARP is measured in the federal budget. To put it simply, TARP pushed spending up in Bush’s final fiscal year (FY2009, which began October 1, 2008) and then repayments from the banks (which count as “negative spending”) artificially reduced spending in subsequent years.

The combination of those two factors made a big difference in the numbers. Here’s another table from my prior post, looking at how the presidents rank when you subtract both defense and the fiscal impact of deposit insurance and TARP.

All of a sudden, Obama drops down to the second-to-last position, sandwiched between two of the worst presidents in American history. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

But this ranking is incomplete. At that point, I was trying to gauge Obama’s record on domestic spending, and the numbers certainly provide some evidence that he is a stereotypical big-spending liberal.

But the main debate is about which president was the biggest overall spender. So I’ve run through the numbers again, and here’s a new table looking at the rankings based on average annual changes in inflation-adjusted primary spending, minus the distorting impact of deposit insurance and TARP.

Obama is still in the second-to-last position, but spending is increasing by “only” 5.5 percent per year rather than 7.0 percent annually. This is obviously because defense spending is not growing as fast as domestic spending.

Reagan remains in first place, though his score drops now that his defense buildup is part of the calculations. Clinton, conversely, stays in second place but his score jumps because he benefited from the peace dividend after Reagan’s policies led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Let’s now look at these numbers from a policy perspective. Rahn Curve research shows that government is far too big today, so the goal of fiscal policy should be to restrain the burden of government spending relative to economic output.

This means that policy moves in the right direction when government grows more slowly than the private sector, as it did under Reagan and Clinton.

But if government spending is growing faster than the productive sector of the economy, as has been the case during the Bush-Obama years, then a nation eventually will become Greece.

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which President Is the Biggest Spender of All?

A financial columnist named Rex Nutting recently triggered a firestorm of controversy by claiming that Barack Obama is not a big spender.

Here’s the chart he prepared, which certainly seems to indicate that Obama is a fiscal conservative. Not only that, it shows that Republicans generally are the big spenders, while Democrats are frugal with other people’s money.

In some ways, these numbers don’t surprise me. I’ve explained before that Bush bears a lot of blame for the big expansion in the burden of government this century, and I’ve specifically pointed out that he deserves the blame for most of the higher spending from the 2009 fiscal year (which began October 1, 2008).

That being said, Nutting’s numbers seemed a bit nutty. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Nutting’s numbers actually seem accurate, including the fact that he decided that Obama should be responsible for $140 billion of the spending in Bush’s last fiscal year (a number he may have taken from one of my posts).

But sometimes accurate can be misleading, so I decided to dig into the data.

I went to the Historical Tables of the Budget from the Office of Management and Budget, and I calculated all the numbers for every President since LBJ (with the exception of Gerald Ford, whose 2-year reign didn’t seem worth including).

But I corrected a big mistake in Nutting’s analysis. I adjusted the numbers for inflation, using OMB’s GDP deflator.

As you can see, this changes the results. My chart isn’t as pretty, but based on the inflation-adjusted average annual growth of outlays, it shows that Clinton was the most frugal president, followed by the first President Bush and Obama.

With his guns-n-butter Keynesianism, it’s no big surprise that LBJ ranks last. And “W” also gets a very low grade.

But then I figured we should take interest payments out of the budget and focus on inflation-adjusted “primary spending.” After all, Presidents shouldn’t be held responsible for the national debt that existed before they took office.

Looking at these numbers, it turns out that Obama does win the prize for being the most fiscally conservative president in recent memory. Reagan jumps to second place. Clinton is in third place, which won’t surprise people who watched this video, while W and LBJ again are in last place.

But I don’t want my Republican friends to get too angry with me, so let’s expand our analysis. Just as we don’t want to blame Presidents for net interest payments on debt that was accrued before their tenure, perhaps we should make sure they don’t get credit or blame for defense outlays that often are dictated by external events.

There’s obviously room for disagreement, but most people will agree that the Cold War and 9/11 meant higher defense spending, regardless of which party controlled the White House. Similarly, the collapse of the Soviet Empire inevitably meant lower military expenditures, regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats were in charge.

So let’s now look at primary spending after subtracting defense outlays (still adjusting for inflation, of course). All of a sudden, Reagan jumps to the top of the list by a comfortable margin. LBJ and W continue to score poorly, but Nixon takes over last place.

But it’s also worth noting that Obama still scores relatively well, beating Clinton for second place. Inflation-adjusted domestic spending (which is mostly what we’re measuring) has grown by 2.0 percent annually during his three years in office.

So does that mean Obama deserves re-election? Well, before you answer, I want to make one final calculation. Just as there are good reasons to exclude interest payments because they’re not something a president can control, we also should take a look at what spending would be if we don’t count the cost of bailouts.

To be sure, these types of expenditures can be controlled, but if we go with the assumption that the federal government was going to re-capitalize the banking system (whether using the good FDIC-resolution approach or the corrupt TARP approach), then it seems that Presidents shouldn’t get arbitrary blame or credit simply because some financial institutions failed during their tenure.

So let’s take the preceding set of numbers and subtract out the long-run numbers for deposit insurance, as well as the TARP outlays since 2009. And keep in mind that repayments of TARP monies (as well as deposit insurance premiums) show up in the budget as “negative spending.”

As you can see, this produces a remarkable result. All of a sudden, Obama drops from second to second-to-last.

This is because there was a lot of TARP spending in Bush’s last fiscal year (FY2009), which created an artificially high benchmark. And then repayments by banks during Obama’s fiscal years counted as negative spending.

When you subtract out the big TARP spending surge, as well as the repayments, then Bush 43 doesn’t look quite as bad (though still worse than Carter and Clinton), while Obama takes a big fall.

In other words, Obama’s track record does show that he favors an expanding social welfare state. Outlays on those programs have jumped by 7.0 percent annually. And that’s after adjusting for inflation! Not as bad as Nixon, but that’s not saying much since he was one of America’s most statist presidents.

Allow me to conclude with some caveats. None of the tables perfectly captures what any president’s fiscal record. Even my first table may be wrong if you want to blame or credit presidents for the inflation that occurs on their watch. And there certainly are strong arguments that bailout spending and defense spending are affected by presidential policies rather than external events.

And keep in mind that presidents don’t have full power over fiscal policy. The folks on Capitol Hill are the ones who actually enact the bills and appropriate the money.

Moreover, the federal government is akin to a big rusty cargo ship that is traveling in a certain direction, and presidents are like tugboats trying to nudge the boat one way or the other.

But enough equivocating. The four different tables at least show more clearly which presidents presided over faster-growing government or slower-growing government. More importantly, the various tables provide a good idea of where most of the new spending was taking place.

We can presumably say Reagan and Clinton were comparatively frugal, and we can also say that Nixon, LBJ, and Bush 43 were relatively profligate. As for Obama, I think his tugboat is pushing in the wrong direction, but it’s only apparent when you strip out the distorting budgetary impact of TARP.

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What’s the Recipe for Growth and Prosperity?

What is the best way improve economic performance and boost living standards?

If you listen to politicians, they would like us to think that adopting Policy A or repealing Policy B is a magic elixir. And if that means adopting a flat tax or repealing Obamacare, I’ll certainly be happy.

But this video, based on analysis and data from the Economic Freedom of the World Index, shows that there is no silver bullet. Prosperity depends on several factors.

I mention this because I’m currently in the Dominican Republic for a conference on how best to improve competitiveness and growth (as you can see from the photo, this is hardship duty and I’m very sad that I’m missing the wonderful February weather in Washington).

My speech this morning was about tax reform, and I explained why a flat tax is the best way of collecting revenue in a way that minimizes economic damage and reduces opportunities for corruption.

But even though I’m a big advocate for better tax policy, the lesson from the Economic Freedom of the World Index, and as explained in the video, is that adopting a flat tax won’t solve a nation’s economic problems if politicians are doing the wrong thing in other areas.

There are five major policy areas, each of which counts for 20 percent of a nation’s grade.

1. Size of government
2. Regulation
3. Monetary Policy
4. Trade
5. Rule of Law/Property Rights

Now let’s pick Ukraine as an example. As a proponent of tax reform, I like that lawmakers have implemented a 15 percent flat tax.

But that doesn’t mean Ukraine is a role model. When looking at the mix of all policies, the country gets a very poor score from Economic Freedom of the World Index, ranking 125 out of 141 nations.

Conversely, Denmark has a very bad tax system, but it has very free market policies in other areas, so it ranks 15 out of 141 countries.

The moral of the story is simple. A country should have a small public sector and a pro-growth tax system, but that’s only 20 percent of the answer. Prosperity requires good policy in many areas.

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The Price of Big Government: America Again Drops in Global Ranking of Economic Freedom

The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom has just been released. This is my favorite publication from the Heritage Foundation, and second only to the Economic Freedom of the World Index as a measure of global public policy.

The news scores for 2012 are not pretty. We have bad news, we have worse news, and we have worst news.

Economic Freedom Declines in America

The bad news is that the score for the United States dropped from 77.8 to 76.3, which caused America to drop from 9th place to 10th place in the global rankings.

The worse news is that the U.S. dropped only one spot because other nations also adopted more statist policies. America would be in 12th place if Denmark and Bahrain simply maintained their positions from last year.

The worst news is that America’s decline is not just a one-year phenomenon. The chart shows how the U.S. has dropped from being a “free” nation to being a “mostly free” nation over a four-year period.

But it’s not just the past couple of years. The second chart, using data from the Economic Freedom of the World Index, shows that the United States has declined over the past 11 years thanks to Bush-Obama statism.

In other words, America is paying a real prices for bad government policy. As jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Singapore continue to liberalize their economies and maintain high levels of economic freedom, jobs and investment will leave the United States in search of friendlier policy.

The only silver lining to this dark cloud is that other major economies – especially in Europe – are deteriorating at a faster rate. So America will benefit from flight capital in the short run even though our long-run prospects are equally dismal.

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Another Sign of American Decline: USA Drops from 1st to 5th in Index of Financial Centers

I’ve previously blogged about the declining status of the United States, as measured by objective sources such as the Economic Freedom of the World Index and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

My attitude about these developments is to sarcastically say, “Thanks for nothing, Bush and Obama.”

But the real insult to injury is that America is dropping even according to indices created by left-wing groups.

The Tax Justice Network is a bunch of crazy Euro-socialists (no snarky comments about redundancy, please), and they specialize in seeking to undermine tax competition in order to make it easier for government to impose class-warfare taxes and expand the burden of government.

One of their projects in a “Financial Secrecy Index,” in which they identify the supposedly bad jurisdictions that have strong human rights policies on financial privacy. The TJN crowd hates privacy since it makes it difficult for greedy governments to track – and tax – flight capital.

Anyhow, these statists issued their first Index in 2009 and I’m proud to say the United States came in first place, presumably because of our pro-growth policies to attract foreign investment and the business-friendly incorporation laws in states such as Delaware and Nevada.

But now, as you can see, we’ve dropped to 5th place in the 2011 Index.

I confess, though, that I didn’t bother to read the accompanying report, so perhaps changes in methodology account for America’s decline in the rankings.

Regardless, it can’t be a positive sign that the United States is losing its status – particularly when we need more investment to counter the negative impact of the Bush-Obama policies.

One can only hope that there will be changes that lead to America claiming the top spot when the next Index is released.

By the way, for more information about the value of tax competition and financial privacy, click this link.

And here’s a link to a British politician, Dan Hannan, who understands what is at stake.

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New Rankings from Economic Freedom of the World Reveal Dismal Impact of Bush-Obama Statism

The 2011 edition of Economic Freedom of the World, published by Canada’s Fraser Institute (with help from groups like Cato), has been released.

Covering data through 2009, the new report provides damning evidence of the negative impact of the Bush-Obama policies of bigger government and more intervention.

Here’s a relevant passage from the Executive Summary.

The world’s largest economy, the United States, has suffered one of the largest declines in economic freedom over the last 10 years, pushing it into tenth place. Much of this decline is a result of higher government spending and borrowing and lower scores for the legal structure and property rights components. Over the longer term, the summary chain-linked ratings of Venezuela, Zimbabwe, United States, and Malaysia fell by eight-tenths of a point or more between 1990 and 2009, causing their rankings to slip.

This chart, taken directly from the book, shows how the United States has been of the world’s five-worst performers over the past decade, putting America in a very unfortunate category.

The previous chart shows the decline in America’s absolute ranking. And here’s a chart I created showing how the United States has declined relative to other nations. Simply stated, America is on the verge of falling out of the top 10, after being the 3rd-freest economy in the world at the end of the Clinton Administration.

Thanks George and Barack.

By the way, Hong Kong and Singapore are the top two nations, where they’ve ranked for quite some time. Here is the full top-10 list.

1. Hong Kong

2. Singapore

3. New Zealand

4. Switzerland

5. Australia

6. Canada

7. Chile

8. United Kingdom

9. Mauritius

10. United States

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America Falls to 9th Place in Index of Economic Freedom Ranking

I prefer the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World over the Heritage/WSJ Index of Economic Freedom, not because I’m an expert on the methodology of the two publications, but for the simple reason that I assume Economic Freedom of the World must be slightly more accurate because, unlike the Heritage Index,  it showed the U.S. score declining during the Bush years.

That being said, the Index of Economic Freedom is my favorite Heritage Foundation publication. It is a first-rate collection of data and analysis on international economic policy trends. Today, however, the latest version of the Index was released and it brings us bad news about the United States.

America’s score dropped by 0.2. Combined with what happened to other nations, that dropped the United States down to 9th place. Lots of fascinating material in the report. The very solid scores for Chile and Estonia (both just outside the top 10) are especially noteworthy. And a special shout out to North Korea for easily beating Cuba and North Korea for the last prize honor.

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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which Nation Has the Most Debt of All?

The Economist has a fascinating webpage that allows you to look at all the world’s nations and compare them based on various measures of government debt (and for various years).

The most economically relevant measure is public debt as a share of GDP, and you can see that the United States is not in great shape, though many nations have more accumulated red ink (especially Japan, where debt if much higher than it is in Greece).  As faithful readers of this blog already understand, the real issue is the size of government, but this site is a good indicator of nations that finance their spending in a risky fashion.

By the way, keep in mind that these figures do not include unfunded liabilities. For those who worry about debt, those are the truly shocking numbers (at least for the United States and other nations with government-run pension and health schemes).

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Another Measure of American Decline

I don’t know if this is hope or change, but the United States fell from 2nd to 9th in the Forbes index of “Best Countries for Business.” Denmark is first, which may be a surprise, but the Scandinavian country is very free market other than fiscal policy. Hong Kong, meanwhile, enjoyed the biggest increase.

The U.S. economy is teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession. High unemployment and a weak housing market are dragging down economic growth. But there’s another major issue that isn’t getting much attention these days: The business climate for entrepreneurs and investors in the U.S. is starting to lag behind other countries’. The U.S. dropped from No. 2 to No. 9 in our fifth annual ranking of the Best Countries for Business. Blame the high tax burden and a poor showing on trade and monetary freedom compared with many other developed nations. The 35% federal corporate tax rate is the highest of any OECD country according to the Tax Foundation. Meanwhile the government’s significant intervention in the economy during the economic downturn has weakened economic freedom in the U.S. …A big mover up the rankings is Hong Kong, which swapped places with the U.S., moving up to No. 2 from No. 9. It scored in the top three for taxes, investor protection and both trade and monetary freedom.

The Top 10

 1.  Denmark
 2.  Hong Kong
 3.  New Zealand
 4.  Canada
 5.  Singapore
 6.  Ireland
 7.  Sweden
 8.  Norway
 9.  United States
10. United Kingdom

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America Drops to Fourth Place in Global Competitiveness Ranking

After being in 1st place in 2007 and 2008, America dropped behind Switzerland in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report in 2009. The 2010 ranking was just released, and the United States has tumbled two more spots to 4th place, behind Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore. I’m not a complete fan of the World Economic Forum’s methodology (the Economic Freedom of the World rankings are the best measure of sound economic policy), but it’s almost surely a bad sign when a country moves down in the rankings.  The timing of the fall will lead some to blame Barack Obama, and I certainly agree that his policies are making America less competitive, but Bush also deserves blame for increasing the burden of government and compromising America’s economic vitality. Here’s a blurb from the Associated Press.

The U.S. has slipped down the ranks of competitive economies, falling behind Sweden and Singapore due to huge deficits and pessimism about government, a global economic group said Thursday. Switzerland retained the top spot for the second year in the annual ranking by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum. It combines economic data and a survey of more than 13,500 business executives. Sweden moved up to second place while Singapore stayed at No. 3. The United States was in second place last year after falling from No. 1 in 2008.

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For Heaven’s Sake, America Is Not One of the World’s 17 Most-Authoritarian Nations

A writer for the Atlantic (or perhaps an editor in charge of headlines) is so clueless about world affairs that he lists America as one of the world’s most-authoritarian nations. As someone who is constantly criticizing government, I certainly have no objection to strong rhetoric when describing the misguided policies of the federal government. But I also like to put everything in context and recognize that the United States is still one of the best places for people who value freedom. That may be damning with faint praise, but relative rankings matter. And so when someone at the Atlantic asserts that we are more authoritarian than Libya, Russia, Venezuela, and Cambodia, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The fundamental problem with the article is that it uses some maps put together by Esquire that simply show nations that impose the death penalty and nations that allows gays to serve in the military. It is quite reasonable to argue that the United States has the wrong approach on those issues. To argue that the American position on those two issues someone makes us worse than 178 other countries is borderline nuts. The Atlantic writer basically acknowledges that point in the article, which brings us back to who was in charge of the headline?

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Clinton Was Much Better than Bush

 Some of my posts spark debate between Bush supporters and Clinton fans, particularly on my Facebook page. I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but Clinton wins that contest hands down. I’m only talking about economic issues, to be sure, so I’m not looking to trigger any discussions about foreign policy or abortion.

Regarding economic issues, perhaps the key thing to understand is that there are many factors which determine economic freedom (which, of course, is related to growth and prosperity). Some people look at a high-profile issue such as taxes, and are tempted to rank Bush higher because he cut taxes in 2001 and 2003, whereas Clinton increased taxes in 1993 (he also cut taxes in 1997, but not as much as he raised them four years earlier).

But while Bush had a better record on taxes, he had a much worse record on spending. And as I wrote in the Washington Examiner a couple of years ago, Bush’s record in other areas was more statist than Clinton’s (and I was writing before the bailouts).

Perhaps the best way of showing the difference between Bush and Clinton is to examine the Economic Freedom of the World annual rankings. Not all the years are available, but the image below clearly shows that economic freedom rose during the Clinton years and fell during the Bush years.

I’m no great fan of Bill Clinton, and I’ll be the first to admit that many of the good things that happened under Clinton were the result of a GOP Congress (in the good old days before they were corrupted by compassionate conservatism). But also keep in mind that Clinton signed into law almost all of the good policies that were enacted during his reign. Likewise, Bush signed into law almost all of the bad policies that were enacted during his reign. If I’m choosing between the economic policies that were implemented by the previous two Presidents, the answer is obvious.

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Europe Lags Behind

Since many of the politicians want America to be more like Europe (including full government-run healthcare), it’s worth contemplating what that would mean for the economy. America today is richer than Western Europe. Indeed, per-capita living standards are about 30 percent higher in the United States – and that’s according to the statists at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (see page 6 of this report). And we have been growing faster, which presumably should not be the case according to convergence theory (see Annex Table No. 1 of this OECD database). It also seems that Europe’s economy is more likely to endure a double-dip recession. Bloomberg reports:

Europe’s economy may be coming unstuck from the global recovery as governments to the south of the region struggle to reverse budget deficits and consumers in the north pull back spending. After the 16-nation euro economy almost stagnated in the fourth quarter, data this week showed the weakness reaching into 2010. …“Europe is where we see the biggest risk of a double dip at the global level,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London. “Europe has been lagging and we’ve continued to see better numbers in Asia and now the U.S.” …“There are tentative signs that the U.S. economy may be pulling ahead from Europe,” Nelson said in a Feb. 23 report… “The sovereign debt crisis in Europe’s periphery reinforces drags on euro-area growth,” said Michael Saunders, an economist at Citigroup in London.

Irwin Stelzer, meanwhile, writes in the Washington Examiner about the same topic:

Europeans are comparing their close-to-zero growth rate in the last quarter of 2009 with our almost-6 percent growth. …We are growing and they are not. …Large numbers of shops in London are shuttered, students see no prospect of work when they graduate, and businessmen are groaning under rising tax burdens.

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The Global Ranking that Really Matters

The United States may not have the freest economy in the world. And America may not be the best place to live. But we do have the most hotties, at least according to a poll of British travelers that was linked on Instapundit. Having done a bit of travel myself, I’d put Estonia at the top of the list for those who prefer blondes and Montenegro for those who prefer brunettes. But what do I know? Here’s a report on the survey from the Daily Telegraph:

The United States, home to George Clooney and Jessica Simpson, came top in a poll of more than 5,000 globe-trotting Britons. In second place was Brazil while Spain, which boasts Hollywood actress Penelope Cruz as one of its natives, was third. Blonde, tanned surfers of Australia saw it voted into fourth place, while Italy came fifth. Sexy Swedes, such as model Victoria Silvstedt, helped it into sixth spot, but England only made it into seventh place in the poll. India was eighth, France ninth, and Canada finished off the top 10. …A spokeswoman for www.OnePoll.com, which carried out the study, said: ”America has got a lot on offer and boasts some of the sexiest people on the planet.

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