I don't know what economic freedom means, but the last time I checked, the US is doing just fine in the Capital department.
And a VAT is highly unpopular.
As to VAT being “unpopular”—that’s a very odd statement. The US is the only OECD country without a VAT. (By contrast, a dozen OECD countries have no taxes at all on long term capital gains.)
Easy yes, cheap no.
Considering that Hong Kong is at the top of that list, it tells me that maybe "economic freedom" is not necessarily the thing to optimize for.
Or to put it in other terms, I don't believe that any singular -ism is the solution.
> As to VAT being “unpopular”—that’s a very odd statement.
How is that odd? We have an economy driven heavily by consumption, a VAT would make everything more expensive and would be seen as a tax on the poor and middle class.
It certainly seems like one of the dimensions to optimize for, considering that also ahead of the U.S. on that list are pretty great places like Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. Also Singapore and Taiwan, places that went from poverty to prosperity in a couple of generations thanks to economic freedom.
> How is that odd? We have an economy driven heavily by consumption, a VAT would make everything more expensive and would be seen as a tax on the poor and middle class.
It's odd to say that something that has been universally adopted by the liberal democracies of every other OECD country is "unpopular."
The Canadian corporate tax rate is just 15%, and even Trudeau is pursuing aggressive neo-liberal policies. Canada would happily take our billionaires. (So would other English-speaking countries. Ireland, the U.K., and Canada have been the destination for dozens of corporate inversions over the last couple of decades.)
The U.S. is already the least economically free country in the Anglosphere: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking. Do we really need to test how much we can squander our prosperity by being to the left of countries like France? https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/emmanuel-macron-cont...
Especially when it's unnecessary? Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax, even on paper, will raise a fraction of the revenue that a VAT would. (Which Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and Australia all have, unlike the wealth tax.)