By The Craig Bushon Show Media Team
Turn on the TV and you’ll see it plastered everywhere: glossy images of Europe, touted by our own political elites as the shining example of what we should become. Free health care. Months of paid leave. Big safety nets. Sounds cozy, right?
But here’s what they don’t show you: economies growing more sluggishly than ours overall, even if not uniformly stalled. In 2025, Eurostat data shows EU GDP growth averaging 1.5 to 2%, compared to 2.5 to 3% here in the United States. Some countries like Germany (1.8%) and the Netherlands (2.1%) remain relatively competitive, but they still trail America’s pace. The eurozone as a whole remains vulnerable to slowdowns and struggles with structural issues that our more dynamic economy continues to outrun.
Young people are also facing wildly different prospects depending on where they live. In Germany, youth unemployment is a manageable 6%, but it soars to 20% in Spain and remains stubbornly high in Italy and Greece. That patchwork undermines any rosy idea of a “European model” universally delivering opportunity for the next generation. Instead, it’s a caution that high taxes and rigid labor markets can turn demographic and global pressures into deeper crises in places already weighed down by bureaucracy.
Entire nations are so overregulated and overtaxed that starting a business often feels more like feeding a bloated bureaucracy than creating prosperity. The average tax burden in the EU still sits around 41% of GDP, compared to just 27% in the U.S., and it shows. Launching a business in France or Italy can mean weeks of paperwork and thousands in fees, versus days and a few hundred bucks in many U.S. states. It’s a bleak picture where ambition is smothered by paperwork, innovation throttled by endless compliance, and the promise of building something real buried under government excess.
John Stossel lays it out plainly in his eye-opening video, “The Death of Europe”, where he and economist Sven Larson break down how high taxes, heavy regulations, and bloated welfare systems have strangled parts of Europe’s economic vitality. It’s a sober warning of what happens when good intentions get hijacked by big government promises.
Why does this matter to us? Because the very same policies that slowed down large segments of Europe are being pushed here with alarming speed. Sky high taxes in the name of “equity.” Regulations that choke off small businesses before they even get off the ground. And a political culture obsessed with handouts instead of opportunity.
Of course, Europe’s challenges aren’t purely about taxes and regulations. Aging populations, fewer children, and fierce global competition all shape these economies. But here’s the hard truth: instead of meeting those challenges with policies that fuel productivity and adaptability, many European leaders doubled down on expansive entitlements, rigid labor rules, and steep tax burdens that left them less agile than the U.S. That is the real warning for us — because when you pair inevitable demographic shifts with policies that suppress economic success, you lock in a recipe for stagnation.
America didn’t get where it is by copying Europe’s big government blueprint. We became the envy of the world because we trusted people more than politicians. Because we rewarded work, risk taking, and ingenuity, not lifetime dependence on the state.
I’ll put it plainly: economic freedom is moral freedom. When you tax people to death and regulate every move they make, you don’t just slow down GDP charts on some boring cable show. You crush dreams, you stall family formation, and you make it harder for folks to build a legacy.
Europe shows us what happens when utopian promises turn into bureaucratic monsters. Sure, “free stuff” polls well, until the bill comes due in the form of fewer jobs, less innovation, and aging populations unable to support their own promises. Even the strongest parts of Europe still lag behind our growth. Meanwhile, look at American cities already experimenting with European style policies like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Crushing tax burdens. Mountains of red tape. And ironically? Some of the worst inequality and public services in the country.
This is the line in the sand. If we want America to remain the land where anyone can make something of themselves, where you’re not stuck waiting for a bureaucrat’s green light to take a chance, then we must push back now.
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Cut taxes that punish success.
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Slash regulations that suffocate small business.
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Rein in spending that mortgages our children’s futures.
In short: let’s keep the promise of America alive, a place where ambition beats entitlement, where innovation outpaces red tape, and where tomorrow’s opportunities aren’t squandered by today’s short sighted politics.
Europe’s economic slowdown isn’t some distant tragedy, it’s a vivid cautionary tale, and we’re standing on the same ledge. Will we let bloated government and creeping socialism drain the lifeblood of this great Republic? Or will we stand up as patriots, defend our economic freedom, and secure the blessings of liberty for our children?
As Ronald Reagan warned, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven, where they don’t need it, and hell, where they already have it.” It’s a lesson we ignore at our peril.
From where I sit, the choice is clear. We either learn from Europe’s mixed results — recognizing that even their best cannot match American dynamism — and fight to preserve what makes us exceptional, or we resign ourselves to watch this nation, the last best hope of earth, fade into the same slow decline.
It’s time to draw that line, to rally behind freedom, and to prove to the world once again why America is worth believing in.
