Honoring the life of Milton Friedman.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H. Res. 1089, a resolution honoring Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman was one of America's greatest champions of liberty. Launching a career as a public intellectual at a time when dissenters from the reigning Keynesian paradigm where viewed as the equivalent of members of the Flat Earth Society, Milton Friedman waged an oftentimes lonely intellectual battle on behalf of free markets and individual liberty in the fifties and sixties. As the economic crisis of the seventies caused by high taxes, high spending, and inflation vindicated Friedman's critiques of interventionism, his influence grew--not because he moved to the mainstream but because the mainstream moved toward him. Friedman served as an advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford and as a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. In 1976, Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

Milton Friedman's most notable contributions to economic theory where in the area of monetary policy. His 1963 work A Monetary History of the United States 1857-1960, coauthored with Anna Schwartz, was among the first works to emphasize the role Federal Reserve policy played in causing the Great Depression. As Friedman said, ``The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.''

Friedman's work showed that inflation is not a result of markets but is, as he memorably put it, ``always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.'' Friedman was the major originator and theoretician of monetarism. Friedman recommended restricting the Federal Reserve's authority to increasing the quantity of money by a fixed yearly amount. While monetarism is far from the ideal free-market monetary system, Milton Friedman deserves credit for focusing the attention of economists on the Federal Reserve's responsibility for inflation.

While he is mainly known for his contributions to economic theory and his advocacy of free markets, Milton Friedman considered his advocacy against the draft, cumulating in his work as a member of President Nixon's Commission on an All-Volunteer Force, his major policy achievement. Milton Friedman's opposition to the draft was in part based on economic principles, but was mainly motivated by his moral commitment to freedom. I ask unanimous consent to insert the attached article, ``Milton Friedman: A Tribute,'' by David R. Henderson, which details Milton Friedman's efforts against the draft, into the record.

Unlike many free market economists who downplay their opposition to government of encroachments on personal liberty in order to appear ``respectable,'' Friedman never hesitated to take controversial stands in favor of liberty. Thus Friedman was one of the most outspoken critics of the federal war on drugs and an early critic of government licensing of professionals. Friedman also never allowed fear of losing access to power stop him from criticizing politicians who betrayed economic liberty. For example, his status as an advisor to President Richard Nixon did not stop him from criticizing Nixon's imposition of wage and price controls.

Milton Friedman's greatest contribution to liberty may have been his work to educate the public about free market economics. Milton Friedman's 1962 work Capitalism and Freedom, introduced millions of people to the freedom philosophy, and it remains one of the most popular, and influential, pro-freedom books in the world.

In 1980, Milton Friedman collaborated with his wife Rose on a television series, Free to Choose. The series, and the accompanying best-selling book, remain among the best introductions to the benefits of economic liberty, and rivals Capitalism and Freedom in popularity. One of my favorite moments of the show is when Milton Friedman compares the robust free market economy of Hong Kong with the then stagnant economy of communist China.

On a personal note, I was honored to receive Milton Friedman's endorsement of my congressional campaign in 1996. One particular quote from his endorsement exemplifies how Milton Friedman's commitment to the free market was rooted in a recognition that a society that respects the dignity and worth of every individual is impossible without limited government, private property, and sound money: ``We very badly need to have more Representatives in the House who understand in a principled way the importance of property rights and religious freedom for the preservation and extension of human freedom in general . . .''

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to pay tribute to Milton Friedman's tireless efforts on behalf of human liberty, and I urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting H. Res. 1089.

[From ANTIWAR.COM, Nov. 20, 2006]

Milton Friedman: A Tribute

``In the course of his [General Westmoreland's] testimony,

he made the statement that he did not want to command an army

of mercenaries. I [Milton Friedman] stopped him and said,

`General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He

drew himself up and said, `I don't like to hear our patriotic

volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' But I went on to say,

`If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary

professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are

served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer,

and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.' That was the

last that we heard from the general about mercenaries.''--

Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People, Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.

In May 1970, a few days after graduating from the

University of Winnipeg with a major in mathematics, I flew to

Chicago to look into getting a Ph.D. in economics at the

University of Chicago. While there, I went to visit Milton

Friedman and he invited me into his office. I had a sense

that he had been through this routine before--talking to an

idealistic young person showing up and wanting an autograph

on his copy of Capitalism and Freedom and, beyond that,

simply wanting to meet and talk to him. But he didn't treat

our meeting as routine; we had a real talk for about 10

minutes. When I told him that I'd initially been attracted to

libertarianism by reading Ayn Rand, he told me that while

Rand was well worth reading, there were many other people

worth reading too, and I shouldn't get stuck on her. He also

stated, ``Make politics an avocation, not a vocation.'' Both

were good pieces of advice.

The advice didn't stop there. I ended up getting my Ph.D.

at UCLA and going to my first academic job as an assistant

professor at the University of Rochester's Graduate School of

Management. From then on, I wrote Milton a couple of times a

year and he always wrote back, sometimes writing in the

margins of my letter to comment on my

questions and thoughts. When I contemplated my first major

career change--leaving academia to work at a think tank--he

advised me strongly against it (I didn't take this advice),

referring to himself as my ``Dutch uncle.'' I had never heard

the term before and didn't bother to look it up until writing

this piece, but I understood what he meant from the context:

a Dutch uncle is someone who gives you tough love, holding

you to high standards because of a benevolent regard for your

well-being.

But here's the bigger point: with his steady and passionate

work to end the military draft, Milton Friedman was the Dutch

uncle of every young man in the United States. Or even

better, he was like a favorite uncle that they'd never even

met. He cared more for them than any president, any general,

or any defense secretary has ever cared. How so? Because he

wanted every young man to be free to choose whether to join

the military or not.

Milton Friedman's work against the draft began in December

1966, when he gave a presentation at a four-day conference at

the University of Chicago. Various prominent and less-

prominent academics, politicians, and activists had been

invited. Papers had been commissioned, and the authors gave

summaries, after which the discussion was open to all.

Fortunately, the discussion was transcribed. The papers and

discussions appear in a book edited by sociologist Sol Tax

and titled The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives.

The invitees included two young anti-draft congressmen,

Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wisc.) and Donald Rumsfeld (R-Ill.),

and one pro-draft senator, Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Also

attending were pro-draft anthropologist Margaret Mead and

anti-draft economists Milton Friedman and Walter Oi. Friedman

gave the general economic and philosophical case for a

voluntary military in his presentation, ``Why Not a Voluntary

Army?'' Friedman pointed out that the draft is a tax on young

men. He stated:

``When a young man is forced to serve at $45 a week,

including the cost of his keep, of his uniforms, and his

dependency allowances, and there are many civilian

opportunities available to him at something like $100 a week,

he is paying $55 a week in an implicit tax. . . . And if you

were to add to those taxes in kind, the costs imposed on

universities and colleges; of seating, housing, and

entertaining young men who would otherwise be doing

productive work; if you were to add to that the costs imposed

on industry by the fact that they can only offer young men

who are in danger of being drafted stopgap jobs, and cannot

effectively invest money in training them; if you were to add

to that the costs imposed on individuals of a financial kind

by their marrying earlier or having children at an earlier

stage, and so on; if you were to add all these up, there is

no doubt at all in my mind that the cost of a volunteer

force, correctly calculated, would be very much smaller than

the amount we are now spending in manning our Armed Forces.''

Reading through the whole Sol Tax volume, with all the

papers and transcripts of the discussion, I had the sense

that there was a coalescing of views over the four days, as

people from various parts of the ideological spectrum found

that they had in common a strong antipathy to the draft and

found also that the economists made a surprisingly strong

economic case. Both Friedman's speech and his various

comments at the conference still make compelling reading. One

of his best rhetorical flourishes was his criticism of the

charge that those who advocate ending the draft are

advocating a ``mercenary'' army. You'll recognize the same

kind of argument he used against Westmoreland in the lead

quote of this article. Friedman said:

``Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-

volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My army is

`volunteer,' your army is `professional,' and the enemy's

army is `mercenary.' All these three words mean exactly

the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a

mercenary professor, and I am a professional professor.

And all you people around here are mercenary professional

people. And I trust you realize that. It's always a puzzle

to me why people should think that the term `mercenary'

somehow has a negative connotation. I remind you of that

wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, `You do

not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker,

but to his proper regard for his own interest.' And this

is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary

motives are among the least unattractive that we have.''

(p. 366)

In the margin of my 35-year-old, dog-eared copy of the Sol

Tax book containing this passage, I wrote one word: ``Wow!''

This is rhetoric at its best, a tight argument passionately

stated. When I read this at about age 18, just a year before

meeting Friedman in his office, I felt cared-for.

Fortunately, being Canadian, I wasn't vulnerable to the

draft. But I had the thought that if I had grown up in United

States, I would be so thankful that here was this man,

himself well beyond draft age and who could probably figure

out how to get his son out of the draft, and yet who cared

enough to be out in front on this issue.

Two of Friedman's comments about this conference are worth

noting. Writing some 30 years later, Friedman noted that the

74 invited participants ``included essentially everyone who

had written or spoken at all extensively on either side of

the controversy about the draft, as well as a number of

students.'' (Two Lucky People, p. 377.) Friedman's other

comment is also worth citing:

``I have attended many conferences. I have never attended

any other that had so dramatic an effect on the participants.

A straw poll taken at the outset of the conference recorded

two-thirds of the participants in favor of the draft; a

similar poll at the end, two-thirds opposed. I believe that

this conference was the key event that started the ball

rolling decisively toward ending the draft.'' (p. 378.)

Friedman didn't stop there. He wrote a number of articles

in his tri-weekly column in Newsweek making the case against

the draft. Friedman was one of 15 people chosen for Nixon's

Commission on the All-Volunteer Force. By his estimate, five

started off being against the draft, five in favor, and five

on the fence. By the end, the Commission was able to come out

with a 14-0 consensus in favor of ending the draft. Black

leader Roy Wilkins, in a Feb. 6, 1970 letter to Nixon, stated

he had been unable to attend many of the meetings due to a

major illness and, therefore, could not support its specific

recommendations; Wilkins did state, however, that he endorsed

the idea of moving toward an all-volunteer armed force. (The

Report of the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer

Armed Force, New York: Collier Books, 1970; letter from Roy

Wilkins.)

It was at one of these meetings that Friedman put

Westmoreland on the spot with his comeback about slaves.

Knowing that Friedman was persuasive and focused and also a

warm human being, I credit him with having swung at least a

few of the Commission members in his direction. And although

Nixon took his sweet time acting on the recommendations,

finally, at the start of his second term, he let the draft

expire.

Friedman kibitzed in his Newsweek column, never letting up.

He once wrote that the draft ``is almost the only issue on

which I have engaged in any extensive personal lobbying with

members of the House and Senate.'' (Milton Friedman, An

Economist's Protest, 2nd ed., Glen Ridge, N.J.: Thomas Horton

and Daughters, 1975, p. 188.)

And Friedman stuck around as an opponent of the draft when

the going got tough. In the late 1970s, high inflation caused

a serious drop in real military pay and a consequent increase

in difficulty meeting recruiting quotas. Of all the threats

to bring back the draft in the last 32 years, the threat in

1979 to 1980 was the most serious. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) held

hearings with the goal of building support for the draft and,

at least, registration for a future draft. Hoover economist

Martin Anderson organized an important conference on the

draft at the Hoover Institution in November 1979 and invited

the top proponents and opponents of the draft. (For the

papers and transcript of the discussion, see Martin Anderson,

ed., Registration and the Draft: Proceedings of the Hoover-

Rochester Conference on the All-Volunteer Force, Stanford,

California: Hoover Institution Press, 1982.) Friedman was one

of the attendees and, at the end, debated Congressman Pete

McCloskey on the draft. It was actually the weakest

performance I've ever seen by Friedman, but Friedman's

``weak'' is still pretty good.

In 1980, in response to the threat from Sam Nunn, I wrote

and circulated the following ``Economists' Statement in

Opposition to the Draft'':

``We, the undersigned, oppose moves toward the reimposition

of the draft. The draft would be a more costly way of

maintaining the military than an all-volunteer force. Those

who claim that a draft costs less than a volunteer military

cite as a savings the lower wages that the government can get

away with paying draftees. But they leave out the burden

imposed on the draftees themselves. Since a draft would force

many young people to delay or forego entirely other

activities valuable to them and to the rest of society, the

real cost of military manpower would be substantially more

than the wages draftees would be paid. Saying that a draft

would reduce the cost of the military is like saying that the

pyramids were cheap because they were built with slave

labor.''

Friedman's speed at signing made it much easier, I'm sure,

to get the signatures of almost 300 other prominent and not-

so-prominent economists, including Kenneth Boulding, Harold

Demsetz, David Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Donald McCloskey,

William Meckling, Allen H. Meltzer, James C. Miller III,

William A. Niskanen, Mancur Olson, Sam Peltzman, Murray

Rothbard, Jeremy J. Siegel, Vernon Smith, Beryl W. Sprinkel,

Jerome Stein, and James L. Sweeney.

The statement, with about 150 signatures, was published as

a full-page ad in Libertarian Review, Inquiry, and The

Progressive.

Milton Friedman and I had our differences about foreign

policy. I tried, in vain, to persuade him to be against the

first Gulf war. Even there, though, he publicly supported, in

an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, my economic

argument against the war. He stated, ``Henderson's analysis

is correct. There is no justification for intervention on

grounds of oil'' (Jonathan Marshall, ``Economists Say

Iraq's Threat to U.S. Oil Supply Is Exaggerated,'' San

Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 29, 1990.) Friedman did oppose

the second Gulf war, as evidenced in an interview in the

Wall Street Journal, in which he called it, correctly,

``aggression.'' (Tunku Varadarajan, ``The Romance of

Economics,'' Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2006; page

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois permitting me to speak on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate for us to pause and reflect on the many contributions of Milton Friedman. At any point we have great thinkers who challenge conventional wisdom. It is appropriate to honor Prof. Friedman. There are some who credit him as the founder of the Chicago School of Economics. There are others who see that he was a free market paragon. I see him as a symbol of what can be done intellectually if people are thinking about the future of problems and creative about solutions.

Milton Friedman understood that, at core, we had a problem in this country with poor people who were poor. They didn't have enough money. He also had suspicion about the various bureaucratic responses that government has assembled over time. And he had presented a provocative proposal to have a guaranteed annual income, a flat basic amount that everybody would be entitled to, regardless of what they did or who they were, that would be cheaper and more effective to administer, that would actually deal with the problem of poor people that they didn't have money. It would reduce the interference in their lives and allow them to respond to a lot of the pressures that we typically associate with how families react.

This was something that was actually briefly considered by the Nixon administration, discarded because it was a little radical at the time. The costs were somewhat uncertain, although Friedman was convinced that in the long run it would actually be cheaper.

This was the inspiration for the earned income tax credit, which is probably the single most effective mechanism, in a Reagan era, that Republicans and Democrats could get behind to reduce poverty. It helped people in a cost-effective way, diminishing the disincentives for work, and was something for which Mr. Friedman never really fully received the acclaim that was deserved by him. This has affected millions of lives in ways that people on both sides of the aisle of a variety of different philosophical perspectives could feel comfortable with.

I think there is also a lesson here, Mr. Speaker, because there are many problems that face us on the floor of this House, that don't have to fall in neat little boxes in a philosophical or a partisan way. We are looking for example, Mr. Speaker, at the investment in agriculture in this country, in a way that cries out for reform. We are spending $23 billion in a year of record-high farm prices.

Now, if my friends on the Republican side and my friends on the Democratic side would think of the teachings and the spirit of Milton Friedman, we could bring people together in a bipartisan way to reform this Depression-era set of programs that is not really an agricultural policy. The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill is observed in the breach, not its actual implementation. We can design a Friedman approach that would be better for the taxpayer, that would be better for the environment, that would actually help individual family farmers more effectively and more directly.

It is but one example that I think, that I hope we can tackle as we move into a new Congress. Perhaps with a new spirit, with a change in the rules so that people will actually be able to more fully and fairly debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, that we can take things like this that can bring the right and the left, the conservative and the liberal, Republicans and Democrats, together to solve problems in a way that will be better for the American people, and we will be better as an institution.

It is with great respect that I join in support of the resolution in honoring Milton Friedman and his career, and I hope that the next Congress is willing to embrace the spirit of his creative mind to be able to do some things that actually we can all agree on need to be done.

Mr. Speaker, on November 16 of this year, America and the world lost not only a brilliant economist but a towering giant of an unbounded vision for freedom. Dr. Friedman was widely recognized worldwide for his economic explanations and philosophies of government and markets. Beyond pure economic analysis, Dr. Friedman promoted liberty and choices in all areas. I am honored to have the opportunity to commemorate his life with this resolution to honor him and have enjoyed collaborating with the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey.

House Resolution 1089 outlines his academic, publishing, and prize- winning accomplishments. I will not relist them here. There is so much to say.

Dr. Friedman's economic prescription advocated we steadily, constantly stabilize the growth of money supply, then more or less just stay out of the way, leaving the economy to the free creative choices of millions of productive individuals, households, and businesses, rather than one micromanaging government. Milton Friedman put individuals, not bureaucrats at best or despots at worst, in the driver's seat.

Essentially we admire him for espousing that economic freedom is necessary for political freedom. And today few would argue that Friedman's ideas went from being seen as radical to now being fully accepted. Most successful countries rely on monetary policy as their chief stabilizing tool. Some shining examples are borne out in Eastern Europe nations that not so long ago dwelled under the Iron Curtain. I think a cartoon that was printed in the Christian Science Monitor in 1990 by Danziger sums it up pretty well. It says ``Statue of Milton Friedman is erected in Poland in place of Whathisname.'' And of course it depicts a collapsed Lenin on his face with a lady chortling ``Hah!'' at the broken statue while other Poles are pulling up a smiling, bespeckled Milton Friedman statue and they have crossed out ``Lenin'' and carved ``Uncle Miltie'' on the statue base.

My colleagues, his crowning achievement was establishing with his wife the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, for the purpose of promoting educational choice and reform for parents and their children. School choice continues to be

passionately debated today; yet experiments from the District of Columbia to my own State of Florida, under Governor Jeb Bush's lead, demonstrate great promise in liberating educational opportunities for all. We have done this successfully for colleges since World War II with the Montgomery GI bill. So why should we deny school choice for kindergartners through senior high school students here in America?

And, finally, my colleagues, I cannot end a tribute to Dr. Friedman without also honoring his wife of 68 years. Rose was his classmate, partner economist, fellow radical for freedom, and, I daresay, the love of his life. I know she and children David and Janet and their grandchildren mourn their beloved Milton but are at peace knowing they contributed to this great man who contributed just so much to the multitudes in this country. For me when I think of the values not only Milton Friedman and his wife promoted, I am moved by this paragraph from the Friedmans' memoirs, ``Two Lucky People.'' Mr. Speaker, this sentiment is bigger than partisan politics. It is more profound than the Washington interest group agenda. It marvelously illustrates optimism for what America could be.

`` . . . So we close this book full of optimism for the future in the belief that those ideas will prevail and that our children and grandchildren will live in a country that continues to advance rapidly in material and biological well-being and gives its citizens ever wider freedom to follow their own values and tastes so long as they do not interfere with the ability of others to do the same.''

Milton Friedman, well done. Rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a friend, a mentor, and a true hero of American liberty and a champion of liberty and justice for all of humankind. The death of economist and libertarian spokesman, Dr. Milton Friedman, last week silenced a powerful voice in the public debate over the role of individual liberty in our society.

As a young man who first became active in politics while I was in high school in the mid-1960s, one of the very first writers who helped shaped my ideas was Milton Friedman in his classic work, ``Capitalism and Freedom.'' Its powerful message of a respect for individual liberty, private property, and limited government inspired me as a young activist in the Youth for Goldwater at that time, I might add, and then again a couple of years later in Youth for Reagan, and continued to guide me as I became a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan and a Member of the United States Congress.

Dr. Milton Friedman was always a creative and innovative thinker. I might add, he was a decent and wonderful warm-hearted human being as well, a man who openly challenged the underlying premises of stateism and of socialism and of the authoritarian impulses that we have often found in politics. His critiques of government schooling, taxation policies, welfare state policies, Social Security, of agricultural subsidies and the rest, all of these predicted long ago the problems that we are having right now with those very same policies; of what they have brought upon our society, the challenges, the tremendous challenges we face because we used those policies and that model as a solution to uplifting the well-being of our fellow Americans.

Last week Milton Friedman's voice was silenced by death, but as long as his writings are read and his ideas cherished, the principle of individual personal economic liberty will remain strong in the United States and around the world.

And I would submit for the Record a statement, an exchange, between Milton Friedman and General Westmoreland over the issue of a volunteer Army and the draft. I would submit that for the Record as an example of the clear thinking and principles, I think, of Milton Friedman.

In his testimony before the commission, Mr. Westmoreland

said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. Mr.

Friedman interrupted, ``General, would you rather command an

army of slaves?'' Mr. Westmoreland replied, ``I don't like to

hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.'' Mr.

Friedman then retorted, ``I don't like to hear our patriotic

volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are

mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you,

sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary

physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat

from a mercenary butcher.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to join with my colleague, Mr. Stearns, to bring this resolution to the floor today. Dr. Milton Friedman is surely a man that is worthy of the honor of this House.

You know, it took courage, it took honor, and it really took genius for Dr. Friedman to challenge the prevailing thought and economic theories of his day. His meticulous economic analysis presented in his books and his lectures and his talks convinced leaders here in the United States, and around the world as well, that inflation could be controlled and it could be controlled through careful control of money supply. That is a theory that has been proven true by the policies of our past Fed chairmen over the last several decades.

Dr. Friedman was known for his ability to defend his theories, to defend the free market ideas with both clarity and grace as well. He is considered a friend of all the economists of the day, Keynesians and socialist economists as well, but he used their critiques to sharpen his own theories. He was on TV for a while in a television series, Free to Choose, and Dr. Friedman introduced his free market concepts to a truly popular audience. He proved himself unafraid to defend himself in the marketplace of general ideas as each segment of this, what was a 10-segment-part program, contained a vigorous debate among politicians of the day, economists and historians as well.

See, Milton Friedman stood, first and foremost, for freedom. He had an earnest belief that a free society is truly a strong society.

So now, fast forward to today. Now, at a time when our freedoms in this country and around the world are under attack, we must defend ourselves from those who would enslave mankind, and we should do so by remembering Dr. Friedman and his intellectual defense of liberty. Remember his long and vibrant life. And we also give our lifelong condolences to his family that he has left behind. He was truly an intellectual giant, and we will all miss him for his abilities and contributions to this world, to this country, and the freedoms that we enjoy today.