Wither economic freedom

The Cato Institute recently released the latest Economic Freedom of the World annual report. Click here to hear an interview with one of the report's authors, James Gwartney. The United States has again slipped in the rankings, now landing at 18th place. It seems the U.S. is falling both relatively (understandable as other nations advance and potentially not material if the differences are slight, which they are not) and absolutely (a much more serious problem).

For me this raises a few questions for progressives:

1. Do you care?
2. Is this a bad but necessary situation as other, conflicting goals are realized?
3. Do you outright deny the report's findings (does this assume you do care about economic freedom?)

My guess is that the answers are basically 20% of the time No, N/A, N/A; 50% of the time Yes, Yes, No; and 25% of the time Yes, Maybe, Probably; and 5% of the time Yes, No, No.

To be clear, I believe the answer should be Yes, No, No.