2008 was the last year the United States was No. 1 in a ranking of the world's most competitive economies. But we have been falling since then, weighed down by a variety of factors -- some of them quite avoidable.
This year, the rankings -- put out by the World Economic Forum -- show that U.S. competitiveness is falling even further. We dropped a notch to fifth place, in part because of factors such as inefficient government and our understandably low confidence in many of our elected officials.
That put us behind the more competitive economies of Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden and Finland. Rounding out the top 10 were, in descending order, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Britain.
Our country's four-spot drop in competitiveness certainly does not suggest that the inefficient, big-government policies of President Barack Obama and many members of Congress have been beneficial. To the contrary.
But they want more of the same policies, so don't look for things to improve anytime soon.