This is an excerpt from a column posted at BizOpinion.
It looks like the U.S. economy grew somewhere between 2.5 and 3 percent in 2013. That falls short of what most economists predicted for the year. But there is a silver lining: The economy grew despite wrongheaded federal policies that have hobbled the recovery.
That fact demonstrates just of how resilient the U.S. economy is and why there is reason to be optimistic for 2014. But if policymakers really want to unleash the job-, opportunity- and wealth-creating power of free enterprise, they should embrace the following policies:
Tap natural resources: Energy is the lifeblood of a developed economy and the insatiable demand for it, especially oil, has led to the transfer of trillions in U.S. wealth to oil-rich nations, including some that are unfriendly to the U.S.
But now the technology (hydraulic fracturing) exists to affordably and safely extract oil and natural gas from America’s vast shale deposits. It is a geological gift and one that, if fully utilized, could drive the economic recovery and do more than anything else to make U.S. businesses, especially manufacturers, globally competitive for decades to come.
