Shortly before Milton Friedman’s death in 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing him over dinner in San Francisco. The last question I asked him was: What are the three things we have to do to make America more prosperous?
His answer I have never forgotten: “First, allow universal school choice; second, expand free trade; third and most importantly, cut government spending.” That was long before Barack Obama and Joe Biden came along.
There aren’t too many problems in America that can’t be traced back to the growth of big and incompetent government.
It is notable that the two big bursts of inflation during modern times both occurred when government spending exploded. The first was the gigantic expansion of the Lyndon B. Johnson “war on poverty” welfare state in the 1970s with prices nearly doubling. Second was the post-COVID-19 spending blitz in the last…
