Florida leads in economic freedom and tax policy rankings
The Sunshine State earns the highest ranking in these policies and makes progress in terms of individual freedoms. It ranks second in the country's overall ranking of freedoms.
Ron DeSantis / Cordon Press.
Florida is the leading state in economic freedom and tax policy and continues to gain positions in the overall freedom indexes in the country. The Sunshine State ranked second in the overall freedom ranking prepared by the Cato Institute.
Its strengths are its fiscal and economic policies, which allow for greater development of the individual freedoms of those who live in Florida.
It is not surprising to see Florida topping this ranking, as the state continuously led this ranking since 2014. However, there are other indexes in which the state has gained outstanding positions in recent years. It stands out especially in regulatory policy, where it improved by five points compared to 2016.
"Florida's regulatory policy is middling relative to other states, but has improved in absolute terms, federalized policies aside," the report noted.
In terms of personal freedoms, Florida rebounded dramatically from 37th in 2013 to rank 12th in the rankings.
Personal freedom in Florida
Florida's weaknesses
In the opinion of the Cato Institute, Florida must improve in terms of freedoms concerning guns or healthcare. The think tank recalled that Florida has a law that restricts business owners from having guns on certain company property, such as parking lots, which violates the property rights of business owners. For its part, healthcare management was also at the bottom of the ranking due to aspects such as the prohibition of financial incentives to providers.
Finally, Cato offered a series of recommendations to the Florida Administration for improvement in other areas. In this regard, the institute called for decentralizing taxing and spending powers from counties to municipalities and making it easier for municipalities to control their own school districts. "Greater local government choice should make Floridians freer," the report noted.
In terms of regulation, the Cato Institute called for reform of the professional licensing system to eliminate barriers to entry and opportunity. For his part, to advance individual freedoms, he called for closing the loophole that allows the seizure of cash without an arrest or ending the suspension of driving licenses for non-driving drug convictions, as most of the country has done.
The full Cato Institute report and its analysis of Florida can be found here:
FL Profile by VozMedia on Scribd
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