Heritage Foundation no longer ranks the United States as a free country (LOL)

[wyldwolf]

Politicalwire.com reports: The Heritage Foundation no longer ranks the United States as a free country. We're now just "mostly free."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/04/06/no_longer_free.html
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking.aspx

The kind folks commenting in the thread at political wire point out:

1. Canada, a country with true Universal Health Care, is ahead of us.
2. This is supposedly a measure of ECONOMIC freedoms, not individual freedom. In other words, how subservient is the government to corporate interests? The US going down on that list is a good thing.
3. Hong Kong, which places higher than the US, isn't even a democracy.
4. The country (Canada) with 33.3% of GDP in tax revenues has "moderate" taxes, whereas the one (the US) with 28.3% of GDP in taxes has "burdensome" taxes. Do you think maybe they started off with their conclusions and then worked backwards to the data?

more...

[samplegirl]

1. While the government continues to fund

this useless foundation.

[grantcart]

3. No it doesn't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_foundation


Funding
Heritage is primarily funded through donations from private individuals and charitable foundations. Businessman Joseph Coors contributed the first $250,000 to start The Heritage Foundation in 1973. Other significant contributors have included the conservative Olin, Scaife, DeVos and Bradley foundations.

In 2006, the Foundation established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom,<14> based on a grant from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, to advance the transatlantic alliance between the U.S. and Britain. Lady Thatcher has since been named Patron of the Heritage Foundation, her only official association with any U.S.-based group.<15>

In 2007, Heritage reported an operating revenue of $48.7 million dollars. $26.4 million came from individual donors, $16.8 million from foundations and $2.2 million from corporations.<16> As of August 2008, Heritage reported 355,000 individual donors.

[harun]

8. I read that too but doesn't the gov't pay it for certain studies and reports?

[damntexdem]

2. I no longer rank the Heritage Foundation as part of my heritage.

Nor as the foundation of anything I recognize as valuable.

Not that I ever did.

;-)

[ck4829]

4. This chart is a joke. It has Singapore at #2 in terms of freedom, how is Singapore a free country?

Heritage Foundation's "freedom" is only for the wealthy and the corporations.

[tridim]

5. He's just mostly dead..

[yellowcanine]

6. "Do you think maybe they started off.... worked backwards to the data?" Yes.

[no limit]

7. The people's republic of China is the most free country on that chart?

Wow.

[daa]

9. With the Bush-Pelosi-Obama illegal wiretaps

I don't see how we could be free.

[TankLV]

10. Heritage is a phoney "think tank"

It's conservative ideas in search of justification.

They have their set BELIEFS and only look for "support" for their ignorance...