Anthony Kim writes for the Washington Examiner about the cost of Biden administration policies.

America’s economic freedom is in growing peril.

That was one of the core findings of The Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Index of Economic Freedom, published in February. The annual global benchmark report, which compares countries’ economic governance and competitiveness, underscored the urgent need for America to change policy course.

The latest index reported that the U.S. fell from 20th to 25th place in the rankings of global economic freedom — its lowest showing since publication of the first index in 1995.

Since release of the 2022 index six months ago, deplorably, America’s economic freedom has been further undercut by the big-government drive engineered by the Biden administration and its far-left allies.

The erosion of economic freedom is being felt by many Americans. Inflation notched a 40-year high of 9.1% in June, and the economy shrank in the first and second quarters of the year.

Despite America’s already weakened fiscal health, the Biden administration has barreled full steam ahead to implement a socialist policy agenda that has added trillions to the national debt, hiked taxes through higher inflation, increased the regulatory burden, and centralized more federal power over the economy.

Take the latest example: President Joe Biden’s cancellation of some student loan debt. Pointing out that this move would cost half a trillion dollars, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget underlined that the federal government’s actions on student loans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have cost about $800 billion. Of that, roughly $750 billion is due directly to executive action and regulatory changes by the Biden administration.

Already saddled with a national debt of over $30 trillion, America can’t afford to gift hundreds of billions more to people who are comfortably off. It only would add to inflation.