[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 130 (Thursday, November 16, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11052-S11053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HONORING THE LIFE OF DR. MILTON FRIEDMAN

 Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I would like to take the 
opportunity to honor the life of a great American economist, Dr. Milton 
Friedman, who passed away today.
  In his 94 years, he lead an intellectual movement at the University 
of Chicago focused on the failure of government intervention in the 
market process, wrote extensively on both economics and public policy, 
served on the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force 
and the President's Commission on White House Fellows, served on 
President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board, and served as 
president of American Economic Association, the Western Economic 
Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society. Dr. Friedman was awarded the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the 
Nobel Prize in economic sciences.
  Dr. Friedman was a prominent defender of the free market and small 
government. A critic of the Federal Reserve, he argued that the 
misguided

[[Page S11053]]

policies of the directors of the Federal Reserve, through contraction 
of the money supply, prolonged and worsened the effects of the Great 
Depression.
  I believe Dr. Friedman's greatness was not in being an academic but 
in taking economic principles, and his immovable convictions, to 
everyday people through his books, columns, public television series, 
speeches, and television appearances.
  To truly honor the life and achievements of Dr. Milton Friedman, we 
should heed the lesson he dedicated much of his life to: the free 
society and the free economy are both essential and inseparable. In his 
book ``Capitalism and Freedom,'' Friedman reminds us that, ``Economic 
arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On 
the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of 
freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In 
the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means 
toward the achievement of political freedom.''.
 Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, today I wish to note the passing 
and celebrate the life of Milton Friedman.
  Nobel laureate Friedman was an economist whose work expanded academia 
to influence Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan, Ben S. 
Bernanke, and many others. If I may dare to join such company, he also 
influenced me.
  Friedman argued that the goal of monetary policy should be long-term, 
stable growth in the supply of money. He championed individual 
initiative and deregulation and influenced decisions from severing the 
dollar from gold to ending the military draft.
  The Wall Street Journal today quoted Carnegie Mellon University 
Professor Allan H. Meltzer as saying ``It's hard to think of anyone 
who's had more of a direct influence on social and economic policy in 
this generation.''
  The PBS airing of his 10-part series ``Free to Choose,'' a defense of 
free market economics, made a huge impression on me. I watched them all 
and learned much.
  Friedman was born in 1912. After graduating from high school before 
his 16th birthday, Friedman won a scholarship to Rutgers University. He 
later studied at the University of Chicago, where he met his future 
wife, Rose Director. Friedman graduated with a master's degree from the 
University of Chicago in 1933 and earned a doctorate from Columbia 
University in 1946. He served as an economic adviser during Barry 
Goldwater's Presidential campaign, won the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom in 1988, and was most recently a senior research fellow at the 
Hoover Institution.
  His contribution to our country was vast, and I mourn his 
passing.

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