Raleigh entrepreneur and John Locke Foundation supporter Robert Luddy shares with U.S. News readers today some interesting ideas about bringing back American prosperity.

The good news is there is a way to correct the course. It is found in the spirit of risk-taking, entrepreneurism, and invention, which are still alive and well in spite of, not because of, government meddling in the marketplace.

Our job creators—small, medium, and national—can solve the problem of unemployment, of want, of lack of opportunity, and unchecked government spending. But it must take the following actions:

  • Reduce federal spending to 20 percent of the GDP, which is the average level of spending for the past 50 years.
  • Reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent paid on all income worldwide.
  • Reduce regulation to common sense levels.
  • End the Federal Reserve’s mandates to manipulate rates and the marketplace; their only concern should be ensuring a sound dollar.
  • Allow the free market to produce the energy needed for economic expansion, including clean-burning natural gas, shale petroleum, expanded offshore and Arctic exploration, and viable, unsubsidized alternative energies.

Our job creators will drive down unemployment, increase wages and prosperity, and expand our national wealth when we are freed from the yoke of excess regulation and taxation. The free market is the most effective, most efficient, and fairest allocator of capital, evidenced by our extraordinarily high standard of living.