Every year that Barack Obama has occupied the Oval Office, the United States has fallen lower in the Economic Index of Freedom compiled annually by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. America was fifth in the ranking in 2008 (surpassed only by Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland and Australia), then dropped to sixth in 2009, eighth in 2010, ninth last year, and now 10th. The index measures, according to its authors, 10 categories of economic freedom: labor, business, trade, fiscal responsibility, government spending, monetary policy, investment, financial regulation, property rights, and absence of corruption. Scores in these categories are averaged to create an overall score for each of all 184 nations. Unfortunately, because so many other nations have followed approaches similar to the failed policies Obama has stubbornly refused to abandon in the U.S. (most notably, 31 of the 43 European nations), America was far from the only country in which economic freedom declined in the 2012 index. As the editors noted, “rapid expansion of government, more than any market factor, appears to be responsible for flagging economic dynamism. Government spending has not only failed to arrest the economic crisis, but also — in many countries — seems to be prolonging it. The big-government approach has led to bloated public debt, turning an economic slowdown into a fiscal crisis with economic stagnation fueling long-term unemployment.”
But increased federal spending never happens in a vacuum. It is invariably accompanied by more bureaucratic regulation. This has especially been true under Obama, whose administration has added at least 46 major new regulations, which are estimated to impose at least $100 million in added compliance costs on private-sector businesses. As Heritage’s Ed Feulner observed, “Each new edict means a new government bureaucracy that individuals and businesses must navigate. Each new law opens the door for political graft and cronyism.”
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At the root of the spending and regulatory explosion under Obama — and the resulting decline in U.S. economic freedom — is his obvious disdain for the Constitution’s limits on executive branch power. The most recent manifestation of that disdain was Obama’s illegal “recess” appointments of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Finance Protection Board and three new members of the National Labor Relations Board. The Constitution says the president can only make such appointments when Congress is in recess; the Senate undeniably was not in recess when these appointments were made.
Members of Congress whined about Obama’s illegal appointments and darkly hinted at legal action, but did nothing concrete to nullify them. What there hasn’t been is anything like a demonstration of resolve in Congress to stand up to Obama and force his compliance with the Constitution. There is only one way to do that on appointments and that is to withdraw funding for any action taken by the appointees in question. Otherwise, Cordray and the NLRB trio will serve as Obama intends and a terrible precedent will have been established. Either Congress shows backbone on this issue, or there will be far more serious constitutional deprivations by a president who “can’t wait” to do what he wants.
