Gary Palmer: Stop digging and start drilling!

  There is no doubt the U.S. economy is in a deep hole. And the familiar advice that the first step to getting oneself out of a hole is to stop digging may not totally apply to the U.S. economy … but it does in some respects.

  On one hand, our economic hole was created by reckless government spending. The obvious solution is to stop going deeper in the hole by cutting spending. However, that is not the whole reason we are in a hole.

  Our economy is also in a hole because of U.S. energy policies that make energy costs unnecessarily higher. On September 13th, The Los Angeles Times reported that motorists in the U.S. are on pace to spend a record $491 billion for gasoline. In fact, households with a yearly income of $30,000 to $50,000 use 20 percent of their disposable income to pay for electricity, natural gas and gasoline; households earning less than $30,000 per year use 23 percent.