USA No Longer Freest Country

Heritage Foundation: “Long a symbol of economic prosperity, America for the first time no longer ranks among the top 10 free nations of the world, according to The 2005 Index of Economic Freedom, just released by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal.”

NewsMax has more:

The Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal since 1995, finds that the United States is letting Big Brother grow obese as other countries get lean and fit. Chile, Australia and Iceland improved enough to leave the U.S. in a tie with Switzerland for 12th place.

“The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing their approaches and reducing their roadblocks,” said Marc Miles, a co-editor of the book, along with Ed Feulner and Mary Anastasia O’Grady. “The U.S. is eating the dust of countries that have thrown off the 20th-century shackles of big government spending and massive federal programs.”

The index analyzes 50 economic variables in 10 categories. This year 86 countries showed improvement, 57 declined, and 12, including America, were unchanged.

Though out of the top 10, the U.S. still had scores good enough to be among the 17 “free” economies. Fifty-six nations were considered “mostly free,” 70 “mostly unfree” and 12 “repressed.”

The top 10: Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Estonia (yes, the former Soviet “republic”), Ireland, New Zealand, U.K., Denmark, Iceland and Australia, followed by Chile.

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