Personal Freedom = Economic Prosperity. Somebody tell Jon Corzine...

Fascinating report issued by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, entitled Freedom in the 50 States.

It can be summed up rather succiently:

We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending and middling levels of regulation and paternalism. New York is the least free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.

Regression analysis demonstrates that states enjoying more economic and personal freedom tend to attract substantially higher rates of internal net migration.

So those bastions of "progressive thought" - New York, New Jersey, and California - are essentially ranked 48th-50th in terms of personal freedom. Which makes Obama's bullying and threatening tactics all the more understandable, as it seems to be part and parcel of all Leftist movements since Stalin.

But what does this mean in terms of economics? The New York Post explains:

Together, New York, New Jersey and California face some $65 billion in budget deficits in 2009, amounting to more than two-thirds of the budget gaps faced by all 50 states. These states' stratospheric spending and taxes have stifled economic growth and left them scarily unprepared for the economic downturn.

Job growth has lagged, too. New Jersey in the last decade saw virtually no private-sector job gains, even counting the boom years before this steep recession. California's unemployment rate is the country's fourth highest.... The bottom-rankers also have reputations as the places that citizens most want to flee for other states.

What a contrast with the study's freest states: New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho and Texas. They all have unemployment rates at or below the national average....

I keep hearing how smart all these progressives are, so much smarter than a Neaderthal like myself. Yet why can't they read the above data and add 1+1 together, and let their people be free ?

Unless it's really not about about a certain way to run an economy, or to conduct international relations. If it's truly all about obtaining power, and holding it at any cost, why, it is no suprise that Obama and the Democrats would follow the lead of the bottom three, and take the rest of the nation down with us. We may be nothing more than a 3rd world power by 2012, but as long as the Democrats have absolute power, they won't shed a tear...