Posted on 03/21/2012 6:55:20 PM PDT by johnatures
ANALYSIS | A day before the Illinois primary, Mitt Romney delivered a blistering attack on President Barack Obama for "assaulting" economic freedom in a University of Chicago speech.
Was he right? Using the style of Steven D. Levitt, a University of Chicago economist and co-author of the book Freakonomics, I evaluate that claim by Romney.
What is economic freedom?
Levitt and his co-author, Stephen J. Dubner, go beyond the politics, bias, and hubris to ask the questions and test the results. For example, what is economic freedom? The Cato Institute has come up with the Economic Freedom of the World dataset, which looks at taxing and spending, property rights protections, currency stability, free trade and financial regulations.
The case against Barack Obama
"The Obama administration's assault on our economic freedom is the principal reason why the recovery has been so tepid-why it couldn't meet their projections, let alone our expectations," Romney said at the University of Chicago, where Obama also taught. "If we don't change course now, this assault on freedom could damage our economy and the well-being of American families for decades to come."
A glance at the data indicates....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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