The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom compares countries on a number of measures of how free their economies are. (Heritage.org)

Economy: The U.S. currently ranks a dispiriting 17th on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. That's down from 6th when Obama took office in 2009. The question isn't whether President Trump can turn this dismal trend around, it's whether Democrats will let him.

The Heritage Foundation has been publishing this index since 1995. It measures things like property rights, fiscal health, business freedom, tax burden, government spending, rule of law and other indicators of economic freedom in 186 countries. Based on these, each country gets an overall freedom index score, which then can be ranked against other countries.

As Heritage points out, there is good reason to focus on these measures of economic freedom, since theydirectly correlate with a country's growth and prosperity. "The affirmative link between economic freedom and long-term development is unmistakable and robust," the report notes. "The higher a country's level of economic freedom is, the higher its income per capita also is."

The good news is that economic freedom worldwide has been inching up for the past two decades. It went from a low of 57.1 in 1996 to 60.9 today.

The bad news is that it's been on the decline in the U.S. since 2008, when it stood at 80.7. Since then, it has dropped every year but one under Obama, and now measures 75.1. That's the lowest score for the U.S. since Heritage started this index 22 years ago.

As a result, the U.S. now ranks behind Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand Canada, Taiwan, the U.K., Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Even Lithuania currently has more economic freedom than the U.S.

"The substantial expansion of government's size and scope, increased regulatory and tax burdens, and the loss of confidence that has accompanied a growing perception of cronyism, elite privilege, and corruption have severely undermined America's global competitiveness," the report finds.

In other words, the U.S. index was dragged down by Obama's anti-growth war on businesses, investors and other productive elements of the economy.

Not surprisingly, the past eight years have also been characterized by historically low economic growth rates, with annual GDP growth never once hitting 3% under Obama.

Turning this around should be a priority in Washington for both Republicans and Democrats. Faster economic growth is desperately needed, not only to create jobs and increase prosperity, but to reduce the federal government's yawning deficits and mountain of debt.

Unfortunately, Democrats and the mainstream press are entirely focused on destroying the Trump administration before it has the chance to put forward any of its pro-growth proposals.

If the U.S. continues to slide down the scale of economic freedom and the economy continues to struggle, the blame will rest on the shoulders of these obstructionists.

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Thank You, Obama: US Steadily Lost Ground On Economic Freedom Over Past 8 Years - Investor's Business Daily