Founded in 1991, the Republican Liberty Caucus works to advance the principles of limited government, free markets and individual liberty within the Republican Party.

Peter Gosselin of The Los Angeles Times looks at how the negative economic outlook is changing opinions when it comes to the topic of economic freedom. Gosselin quotes some important folks who paint a bleak picture for economic libertarians:

“The strong presumption in favor of markets, which has dominated public policy since the late 1970s, has been thrown very much into question,” according to Brookings senior fellow William Galston.

Author Daniel Yergin says, “If the pendulum swung away from government toward much greater confidence in markets during the last generation, the pendulum is clearly swinging back again now.”

And, finally, Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence concluded, “We’ve seen unprecedented growth in the developing countries, while the developed countries are being led into a slowdown by the United States.”

Perhaps this growth in other countries has something to do with the fact that the U.S. is exporting, not only our goods and services, but also billions of dollars that fund foreign governments, each year. Meanwhile, domestically, spending is so high that the chief accountant of the U.S. government resigned in disgust.

Our current economy is not the result of the free market, but, rather, the direct result of government intrusion. It’s time to return to free market principles, not abandon them altogether.