Bet on the builders to power Americas next 250 years

As Americans celebrate our great nation’s independence, let’s reaffirm the fundamental values that built this republic into the most prosperous economy in history: freedom and free enterprise, liberty and limited government, the rule of law and private property, free-market competition and individual incentives.And at their core, perhaps the most important sentence in all of history: “We are endowed by our creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”Plenty of nations endure, but what sets American exceptionalism apart has been a single instinct: to build.Americans invent, take risks and innovate — and we do it because it’s who we are.America recognizes and rewards that entrepreneurial spirit.We’ve never been afraid to build something new — even if it displaces what came before — because the fruits of risk carry the whole country forward.In America we reward, not punish, success.As a result, throughout our history our economy has grown at an annual rate of 3.5%. No other nation on Earth can boast such growth and ever-expanding prosperity. Once again, freedom and free enterprise win. Take Henry Ford: Some worried that his cars would put the buggy makers out of business, and they did.But that created opportunity — new companies, new innovations, greater prosperity for all.The internet began as a tool for a handful of research labs; now it underpins the global economy.Switchboard operators, video-rental stores, newspaper classifieds are all gone.In their place: e-commerce, the app economy, entire categories of work that didn’t exist before — and now employ millions.That’s what our national and economic expansion has always looked like.When Lewis and Clark set out, no one could have priced what lay to the west; the value of a continent was unimaginable from its edge.We stand at the edge of another new frontier now.In America’s next 250 years, the pattern will repeat in the realms of artificial intelli...