"There are men, in all ages, who mean to exercise power usefully; but who mean to exercise it. They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters." Daniel Webster

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

We Are Number 17

Georgia Mason University's Mercatus Center has ranked states based on their total levels of freedom. Georgia ranked 17th in the study.

The study concludes

Georgia is a quintessential Deep South state, com-
ing in at #42 on personal freedom but #6 on economic
freedom. The state and local debt ratio is one of the
lowest in the country. Taxes and spending are lower
than average (once federal grants are corrected for),
and the state is relatively fiscally decentralized.
Georgia has less gun control than all of its neighbor-
ing states except Tennessee. Marijuana laws are bad
but not as punitive as those of Alabama or Missouri.
Georgia has fairly restrictive laws on road users,
with primary seat-belt enforcement, motorcycle and
bicycle helmet laws, an open-container law, sobriety
checkpoints, and auto liability insurance require-
ments. Georgia barely regulates private schools, but
its home school regulations are quite strict, including
teacher qualification requirements. Asset forfeiture
rules require significant improvements (burden of
proof is on the claimant, who has to prove that he
“could not reasonably have known” about crimi-
nal activity to get his property back). Arrests for
victimless crimes are very high, about a fifth of all
arrests. On the economic regulation side, labor laws
are good, and the state has gone far in reforming
eminent domain. It also enjoys one of the best court
systems in the South. Smoking bans have arrived, but
bars are exempt.


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