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Milton Friedman on Regulation, licensing, and bureaucracy

By this line of reasoning, the corner grocer and the A&P are “recipient institutions” because some of their customers receive social-security checks. The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune are Federal contractors because welfare recipients buy papers. How silly can you get?
Bureaucracy Scorned
Column, 1975, Newsweek (December 29, 1975); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Senate, August 26, 1976, p. 28015, under the heading “[From Newsweek, Dec. 29, 1975]”, introduced by Senator Mark Hatfield. Later collected in Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist’s Protest (1983)., Congressional Record, August 26, 1976, p. 28015
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  1. That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense.
    Economic Myths and Public Opinion
    Column, 1976, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9
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  2. The great contraction is tragic testimony to the power of monetary policy—not, as Keynes and so many of his contemporaries believed, evidence of its impotence.
    The Role of Monetary Policy
    Journal article, 1968, American Economic Review 58, no. 1 (March 1968), pp. 1–17; reprinted in the House Banking and Currency Committee’s 1968 Compendium on Monetary Policy Guidelines and Federal Reserve Structure, pp. 214–224, p. 216 of the 1968 House reprint
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  3. The true minimum-wage rate is zero—the amount that an unemployed person receives from his nonexistent employer. This minimum-wage rate will not be affected by the new law. Rather, the law will increase the number of persons who receive a wage rate of zero.
    Legislating Unemployment
    Column, 1972, Newsweek (1972; the issue current on June 28, 1972); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 28, 1972, p. 23100, Congressional Record, June 28, 1972, p. 23100
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