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Milton Friedman on Welfare and the negative income tax

We must have compassion for the less fortunate among us. We must see to it that no resident of the United States is without assistance in time of real need. But that compassion must be joined with realism. It must be expressed in ways that take account of the experience of the past 50 years.

Context. From a 1979 Newsweek column. The column is framed as a daydream: he imagines President Carter giving a televised talk, and everything inside the talk is his own recommendation voiced through that imagined Carter, not anything Carter said. Near the close of the imagined talk, after it says the recommendations return the country to “reliance on individual initiative and voluntary cooperation.”

What Carter Should Do
Column, 1979, Newsweek, June 18, 1979; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 13, 1979, p. 14740, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who cites “the June 18, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, June 13, 1979, p. 14740
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Milton Friedman, “What Carter Should Do” (Newsweek, June 18, 1979; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 13, 1979, p. 14740, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who cites “the June 18, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, 1979), Congressional Record, June 13, 1979, p. 14740. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/compassion-joined-with-realism-1979

Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.

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He also said

  1. But nonetheless, it is disheartening to see us take this further long step on the road to tyranny so lightheartedly, so utterly unaware that we are doing something fundamentally in conflict with the basic principles on which this country is founded. The first time, we may venture only a small way. But the next time, and the next time?

    Context. From the first of two New York Times op-ed essays written at Ely, Vermont, in October 1971, after the August 15 wage-price freeze and as the Nixon administration’s Phase II pay board and price board took over. The sentence before predicts that the controls will collapse rather than harden “into a full-fledged straitjacket.”

    Morality and Controls: I
    Column, 1971, The New York Times, October 28, 1971; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Senate, October 29, 1971, pp. 38201 to 38202, introduced by Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, who dates the two essays to “the October 28 and 29 editions of the New York Times”, under the header “[From the New York Times, Oct. 28, 1971]”, Congressional Record, October 29, 1971, pp. 38201–38202
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  2. Targets should be expressed in terms of dollar levels of monetary aggregates rather than, or in addition to, growth rates. In 1975, Congress required the Fed for the first time to specify targets a year in advance. However, the Fed has evaded the intended discipline by stating targets in terms of growth rates applied to a shifting level of actual monetary totals. This device buried past mistakes and enabled the Fed to start fresh each quarter.

    Context. From a 1980 Newsweek column arguing that the Federal Reserve could control the quantity of money if it changed its operating procedures, written months after the Fed’s October 1979 announcement that it would aim at the quantity of money rather than interest rates.

    Improving Monetary Policy
    Column, 1980, Newsweek, July 28, 1980; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, July 28, 1980, p. 20026, introduced by Representative Robert Dornan of California, who gives the column as appearing in the Newsweek issue “dated July 28, 1980”, Congressional Record, July 28, 1980, p. 20026
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  3. We Americans are far wealthier today than we were 60 years ago. But we are less free. And we are less secure. When I graduated from high school in 1928, total government spending at all levels in the United States was a little over 10 percent of the national income. Two-thirds of that spending was state and local. … Today, total government spending at all levels is 43 percent of the national income, and two-thirds of that is federal, one-third state and local. The federal portion is 30 percent of national income, or about 10 times what it was in 1928.

    Context. From a talk at the banquet celebrating the opening of the Cato Institute’s new building in 1993. He has just said that over the past sixty years the country has been “starving the market that has been working and feeding the market that has been failing”: the economic market, under the incentive of profit, against the political market, under the incentive of power.

    The Real Free Lunch: Markets and Private Property
    Speech, 1993, Remarks at the banquet celebrating the opening of the Cato Institute’s new building, Washington, May 6, 1993 (Cato Policy Report, July/August 1993); reprinted in Toward Liberty: The Idea That Is Changing the World, ed. David Boaz (Cato Institute, 2002), p. 57
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