America: Home of the “mostly” free and somewhat mediocre

By JR Hoeft | Saturday, January 15th, 2011 | Policy

George Will wrote in his column that “the 112th Congress must begin the process of restoring the national regime and civic culture the Founders bequeathed. This will require reviving the rule of law, reasserting the relevance of the Constitution, and affirming the reality of American exceptionalism.”

That is certainly a tall mountain Mr. Will is asking Congress to climb. Over the course of 222 years since the Constitution was ratified, those that believe it is an “evolving” document have clearly been able to exert their will over those who actually believe in enumerated powers.

The change really began to take place during President Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal era.

In 1937, following several cases decided against the president and his new deal statutes, the president threatened his infamous court packing plan, to which the legislature was complicit. Their intent was to force the court into capitulation and the abandonment of Constitutional principles.

And they did.

The Hughes court buckled under the pressure and found social security constitutional under the “General Welfare” clause. Article I, Section 8, says, Congress has the authority to: “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United States.” The court ruled that anything that supports the subjective well-being of the people of the United States is fair game for Congress to pass legislation to collect and redistribute revenue.

So much for enumerated powers.

Regarding American exceptionalism, it has managed to permeate our culture in many manifestations – in large part because of the victory over totalitarianism in World War II and the ultimate fall of communism via the Cold War.

However, this idea of America being exceptional is also now not only in jeopardy, it may already be outright mythical.

Two statistics regarding America’s global standing shatter this notion that we’re somehow #1.

First, and most appalling in our so-called capitalistic society, is that we are now, only “mostly free” when it comes to the economy. The so-called leader of the free world has been surpassed by other former British colonies in Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China), Singapore, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Australia, in addition to Switzerland and Denmark.

This is a recipe for disaster for us when it comes to trade and the stability of the dollar to guard against inflation.

In large part, this “mostly free” assessment is based upon our exorbitant national debt which has skyrocketed from $5 trillion in 1994 to $14 trillion in 2011 (to be fair, $5 trillion is actually $7.5 trillion in 2010 dollars). According to the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom:

“The U.S. score of 77.8 was down 0.2 points from the previous year—largely the result of large government spending increases and passage of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, which severely restricts consumer choice and private health care markets while increasing the size and cost of government. The U.S. dropped from the ranks of economically ‘free nations’ in the previous Index and is now relegated to the ‘mostly free’ category.”

A second statistic to consider regarding American exceptionalism is in education.

This past December, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released the 2009 data for how the U.S. is competing academically.

Surprise. We’re 17th overall.

Guess who surpasses us? Hong Kong, Singapore, China-Shanghai, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, etc.

Recognize the names? Of course you do, as I just listed many of them a few seconds ago when talking about economic freedom.

What’s perhaps most appalling is we were 25th of 34 countries in math.

“The brutal fact here is there are many countries that are far ahead of us and improving more rapidly than we are,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “This should be a massive wake-up call to the entire country.”

Absolutely this should be a wake-up call, but the real question is let’s hope it’s not too late.

Our Constitutional freedom is eroding, our economic freedom is eroding, and our capacity to compete internationally is eroding.

What has happened over the past 70 years to make us less free? What is happening that our capacity to learn, grow, develop, be creative and entrepreneurial has declined? How have we gone from being exceptional to mediocre?

On the flip side, why is it that in a state like Virginia our schools perform better than the national average and we’re consistently known as one of the best places in the country for business?

The answers are relatively simple. We balance the state budget. We place limits on government. We’re a right to work state. We follow our state constitution as written, not as interpreted. We hold our educators accountable. We emphasize hard work, personal responsibility, and freedom.

Unfortunately, while the “Virginia way” is adding jobs and reducing the unemployment rate, we’re still a member state of the Union; and, as goes the nation, so goes us.

We can only hope that the mountain George Will has exhorted our legislators to climb is not too tall. But if they look to Virginia, as our founders once did, they may see the possible.

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