In an April 15 editorial, The Washington Times wrote that President Obama's “policies have secured America's status as part of the declining world.” The Times further wrote: "[T]he president's answer to economic crisis is to heap on more debt. It's this crippling tax-and-spend Obama creed that's bringing America to the brink of Third World inferiority."

From the Times' editorial:

President Obama warns Republican policies will turn America into a Third World country. Look who's talking.

On a campaign fundraising trip to Chicago, Mr. Obama quipped that under the proposed Republican budget plan, “we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought - that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure.” He failed to elaborate on which developing countries he thinks should be models for the United States, but his policies have secured America's status as part of the declining world.

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Mr. Obama is making our enemies' job easier. He has increased economic regulation, pursued energy policies that stifle exploration and production at home while promoting it abroad, and has shown a general contempt for free-market principles that made the U.S. economy great. Plus, given Mr. Obama's astonishingly lax immigration policies, America won't have to wait long to become a Third World country because the Third World is coming here.

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Were it not for Mr. Obama's drunken-sailor-style spending, facilitated by Democratic supermajorities in both houses of Congress during his first two years, the United States wouldn't be in this fix. Still, the president's answer to economic crisis is to heap on more debt. It's this crippling tax-and-spend Obama creed that's bringing America to the brink of Third World inferiority.