Quote:America has matched its lowest global ranking ever at #11, its seventh decline in the past eight years. Measuring such factors as rule of law, regulatory efficiency, limited government, and open markets, they conclude, “The United States remains mired in the ranks of the ‘mostly free,’ the second-tier economic freedom status into which it dropped in 2010.”

$813b in new regulatory costs
Labor participation rate at 40-year low
Accumulated more debt than every other president combined
46m Americans living in poverty
nearly 50m on food stamps
record number of home foreclosures
America's first credit rating downgrade

Quote:After almost eight years of government corruption, ever-expanding spending and taxation, bloating of the administrative state, and governance repeatedly highlighting racial, social and religious divisions, the once unassailable belief in America as the freest, strongest, noblest, most prosperous nation in history has been supplanted by a vision of ourselves that we do not recognize and from which we may never recover.

Obama’s insistence on government being increasingly involved in the country’s private sector’s economic decision-making has inevitably given rise to more and more lobbyists, more special interest groups, more political influence, and more crony capitalism—which makes a mockery of his pledge to create an “unprecedented level of openness” and his claim that his administration has been “the most transparent administration in history.” His proof? Every visitor who comes to the White House is now a part of the public record.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/ec...-the-worse

Quote:- Yet the U.S. economy continues to underperform despite a private sector–led energy boom that has made the U.S. the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.

- 75 percent of respondents saying they believe corruption is widespread in the government and in government regulation of business.

- The overall tax burden equals 25.4 percent of total domestic income. Total government spending amounts to about 39 percent of GDP.

- Labor regulations are not rigid, but other government policies, such as excessive occupational licensing, restrict growth in employment opportunities. Damaging monetary policies, tangled webs of corporate welfare, and various subsidies have bred economic distortions.

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates#

thanks oblunder!

But the gays can get married now!

That's all that matters!