Milton Friedman on Politics, voting, and legislators
Only two routes exist whereby the general interest can express itself, whereby a package deal can be arranged in which we accept cuts in “our” programs because we recognize that we would gain more from cutting “their” programs than we would lose by the cut in “ours.” One route is via the presidency; the other is through Constitutional Amendment.
Context. From the book’s closing chapter, where the Friedmans set out their conclusions as a numbered list; this is the third point. The points just before it say that a special-interest group is one corner of an “iron triangle” of beneficiaries, politicians and bureaucrats, and that electing the “right” people to Congress cannot correct this, because once elected they are pressured by special-interest groups to do the wrong things. The amendment they have in mind is one limiting federal spending, proposed earlier in the book.
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Milton Friedman, “Tyranny of the Status Quo” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), Ch. 9 “The Iron Triangle: How to Defeat It”, p. 166 (with Rose D. Friedman). https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/two-routes-general-interest-package-deal-presidency-amendment-1984
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He also said
Social Security, as we call it, is a combination of two separate programs, neither of which would have a chance of being enacted on its own. One program is a program of a flat-rate tax on wages up to a maximum: a regressive tax imposed at one of the worst places in the economic structure, where it introduces a gap between what the worker receives and what it costs the employer. You cannot conceive of that tax being enacted by itself as part of a financing program. The second component is a system of payments of subsidies, which, again, I cannot believe could have been enacted by itself. It is a system in which the amount a person receives depends on a whole variety of circumstances, some of which may be relevant and some of which may not be relevant to what you would like to have a subsidy program do. But you would never enact a subsidy program in which the largest subsidies go to the people who have earned the highest incomes. Yet when you tie the two together you have a sacred cow. I have always said it is one of the greatest marketing miracles of this century.
Context. From an August 1998 interview in Barron’s, reprinted in the Hoover Digest as “Mr. Market.” Asked whether the United States should privatize Social Security as Chile had done.
Mr. MarketInterview, 1998, Interview in Barron’s, August 24, 1998 (the questioner is identified only as Epstein); reprinted in Hoover Digest 1999 No. 1Checked against the sourceRead the transcriptThe President and the Vice President are the only federal officials elected by all the people. They are the only ones who have a political incentive, once elected, to put the general interest above sectional interests. One route to curbing government is therefore to elect a President committed to that task.
Context. The fourth of the numbered lessons in the book’s closing chapter. The points before it say that special-interest groups have the strongest influence on Congress, that electing the “right” people to Congress cannot correct this, and that only two routes exist for the general interest to prevail: the presidency and a constitutional amendment.
Tyranny of the Status QuoBook, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 9 “The Iron Triangle: How to Defeat It”, p. 166 (with Rose D. Friedman)Checked against the sourceFind the bookI believe along with Parkinson that government will spend whatever the tax system will raise plus a good deal more. Every step we take to strengthen the tax system, whether by getting people to accept payroll taxes they otherwise would not accept, or by cooperating in enacting higher income taxes and excise taxes or whatnot, fosters a higher level of government spending. That's why I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances, for whatever excuse, for whatever reason.
Context. From a 1978 Policy Review article on the tax-limitation movement, written the day after California voters approved Proposition 13 (the Jarvis-Gann amendment). Its opening reworks his April 1978 Newsweek column “A Progress Report”; the passages quoted from it here are from the later, new part of the argument. Parkinson is C. Northcote Parkinson, the British historian known for “Parkinson’s Law”.
The Limitations of Tax LimitationJournal article, 1978, Policy Review (The Heritage Foundation); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 7, 1979, pp. 14069 to 14071, introduced by Representative Hamilton Fish, Jr. of New York as “an article by Dr. Friedman published in Policy Review, the quarterly journal of The Heritage Foundation”, Congressional Record, June 7, 1979, p. 14070Checked against the sourceRead the original
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