Ryan touts trade to spur economic freedom

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that more robust trade policies could boost economic freedom in the U.S.

{mosads}Ryan, speaking at the Heritage Foundation, said that knocking down trade barriers can undercut the ties between corporate America and the government – or “big government and big business kind of grafting on to one another,” as Ryan put it.

The Ways and Means chairman was speaking at an event promoting Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom, an annual report essentially grading countries on their level of government intervention in the economy.

The U.S. came in at 12 on the index, with a slight boost in their overall score. Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand topped the list.

Ryan took some credit for the boost in the U.S. score, pointing to the GOP’s record since taking over the House in 2011. “We brought some temper to the out-of-control spending that was happening in Washington,” Ryan said.

Ryan also called the relationship between big business and government cronyism – the sort of criticism he’s long lobbed at the Export-Import Bank. GOP critics pushed to block the Ex-Im Bank from getting reauthorized last year, but the bank ended up getting extended until this summer.