Time for the annual “best and worst” column, which has been a long-standing tradition (2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, etc).

We actually saw some major good news in 2023. Here are my top 3 developments.

• President Milei in Argentina – The most important election of the year took place in the long-suffering nation of Argentina, which amazingly elected a hard-core libertarian in its presidential election.
• School choice revolution – The past few years have been great for education policy, with state after state adopting some form of universal or near-universal school choice.
• Landslide victory for TABOR in Colorado – If Milei’s victory was the best global election news of 2023, the defeat of Proposition HH was the best domestic election news of the year. Pro-spending lobbies have repeatedly tried to get rid of the TABOR spending cap.

Honorable mention goes to the state tax-cutting wave.

Now for the three worst developments of 2023. And they are all related. Simply stated, I’m very worried about deterioration of global economic liberty and the failure to address festering problems.

• Slouching toward fiscal crisis in the United States – Politicians in the United States generally care more about buying votes than in preserving or enhancing the economic well-being of citizens. Given demographic changes, that’s very bad news for the future.
• Slouching toward fiscal collapse in Europe – Politicians in Europe generally care more about buying votes than in preserving or enhancing the economic well-being of citizens. Given demographic changes, that’s very bad news for the future.
• Reverting to failing statism in China – China’s totalitarian ruler doesn’t have to worry about vote buying, but he nonetheless is moving policy in a bad direction. A very sad development since China reaped big benefits when it moved from awful policy to bad-but-not-quite-as-awful policy.

For dishonorable mention, the economic illiteracy of CNN, the IMF, and the head of the ECB left me shaking my head.