[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 133 (Wednesday, December 6, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H8793-H8798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING THE LIFE OF MILTON FRIEDMAN

  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to 
the resolution (H. Res. 1089) honoring the life of Milton Friedman.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 1089

       Whereas Milton Friedman earned a degree in economics from 
     Rutgers University, and later earned a master's degree from 
     the University of Chicago and a doctorate degree from 
     Columbia University;

[[Page H8794]]

       Whereas Doctor Milton Friedman is widely regarded as the 
     leader of the Chicago School of economics, and the developer 
     of the theory of monetarism that stresses the central 
     importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of 
     government policy and as a determinant of business cycles and 
     inflation;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman's writings and ideas have 
     influenced Presidents, other world leaders, entrepreneurs, 
     and students of economics, and he gave himself generously to 
     public service as an economic adviser to Senator Barry 
     Goldwater's campaign for the presidency in 1964, Richard 
     Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968, the Nixon 
     Administration, Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, 
     and the Reagan Administration as a member of President 
     Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman is a 1976 Nobel Laureate economist 
     and received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1951 honoring the 
     top economists under the age of forty, the Grand Cordon of 
     the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese 
     government in 1986, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 
     1988, the National Medal of Science in 1988, and honorary 
     degrees from universities in the United States, Japan, 
     Israel, and Guatemala;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman's ideas were the model for the free 
     market reforms undertaken in eastern European countries as 
     they emerged from communist domination in the early 1990s, 
     helping extend the blessings of prosperity to millions who 
     had long been denied them;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman was a prolific producer of both 
     scholarly and popular articles, essays, books, and broadcast 
     media, including the books Capitalism and Freedom and Free to 
     Choose, tri-weekly columns for Newsweek, commentaries in the 
     Wall Street Journal, and two multi-part Public Broadcasting 
     Service television series;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman was one of the world's foremost 
     champions of liberty, not just in economics but in all 
     respects;
       Whereas Doctor Friedman will be remembered both as one of 
     the most influential economists in history and as one of the 
     twentieth century's greatest heroes of freedom; and
       Whereas Doctor Milton Friedman died on November 16, 2006, 
     in San Francisco, California, at the age of 94 of heart 
     failure: Now, therefore be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives, on the 
     occasion of the death of Doctor Milton Friedman--
       (1) mourns Doctor Friedman's passing and expresses its 
     deepest condolences to his family, including his widow Rose 
     Friedman, who is herself an accomplished economist and was 
     instrumental in co-authoring some of his major works; and
       (2) honors Doctor Friedman's lifetime of achievements and 
     recognizes his outstanding contributions to freedom, the 
     study of economics, the United States of America, and the 
     world.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.


                             General Leave

  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Widely acclaimed as the leader of Chicago's School of Economics, 
Milton Friedman's achievements in the fields of economic science and 
public policy were remarkable. He was the recipient of the 1976 Nobel 
Memorial Prize, the 1988 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the 1988 
National Medal of Science, just to name a few. In the early 1990s, 
Eastern European countries emerging from communism modeled their new 
free market economies after his teachings.
  He was a champion of individual freedoms as well and wrote 
extensively on the subject throughout his career. Presidents such as 
Ronald Reagan called on Dr. Friedman for his expertise and advice, and 
universities in the United States, Japan, Guatemala, and Israel all 
awarded him with honorary degrees.
  Dr. Friedman passed away on November 16 of this year. And for his 
leadership, achievements, and countless contributions both politically 
and economically, I hope all Members will join me today in honoring his 
life and legacy.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on November 16 the world lost one of its preeminent and 
influential economists and thinkers of our time. Dr. Milton Friedman is 
most commonly associated with his theories of monetarism, his devotion 
to the free market that sought to turn the Keynesian economic 
revolution on its head, and his visions of an international economic 
system that is free of pegged and fixed exchange rates.
  Friedman's top achievement, among many, was his Nobel Prize in 
Economics, which he was awarded in 1976. And while many of his 
achievements are well known, some of his lesser known accomplishments 
make him an intriguing figure. One of the abstractions Friedman 
developed in his famous work, ``Capitalism and Freedom,'' was the 
concept of the negative income tax credit, or the modern-day earned 
income tax credit. This abstraction advances the idea that people who 
earn less than a certain amount of money should receive money from the 
government. Friedman also was a key member of the White House 
Commission on White House Fellows from 1971 to 1973. But most of all, 
Milton Friedman was devoted to the centrality of freedom in domestic 
and international affairs.
  And although Friedman was born to humble beginnings as a first-
generation American, he rose to become the leader of the Chicago School 
of Economics. The Chicago School is regarded around the world as an 
institution that produces outstanding economic scholarship and rigorous 
theory. Milton Friedman's name will hold a permanent place in economic 
debate, and so I am pleased and delighted to be in support of this 
resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 
4 minutes to the author of the resolution, Mr. Stearns of Florida.
  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, on November 16 of this year, America and 
the world lost not only a brilliant economist but a towering giant of 
an unbounded vision for freedom. Dr. Friedman was widely recognized 
worldwide for his economic explanations and philosophies of government 
and markets. Beyond pure economic analysis, Dr. Friedman promoted 
liberty and choices in all areas. I am honored to have the opportunity 
to commemorate his life with this resolution to honor him and have 
enjoyed collaborating with the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey.
  House Resolution 1089 outlines his academic, publishing, and prize-
winning accomplishments. I will not relist them here. There is so much 
to say.
  Dr. Friedman's economic prescription advocated we steadily, 
constantly stabilize the growth of money supply, then more or less just 
stay out of the way, leaving the economy to the free creative choices 
of millions of productive individuals, households, and businesses, 
rather than one micromanaging government. Milton Friedman put 
individuals, not bureaucrats at best or despots at worst, in the 
driver's seat.
  Essentially we admire him for espousing that economic freedom is 
necessary for political freedom. And today few would argue that 
Friedman's ideas went from being seen as radical to now being fully 
accepted. Most successful countries rely on monetary policy as their 
chief stabilizing tool. Some shining examples are borne out in Eastern 
Europe nations that not so long ago dwelled under the Iron Curtain. I 
think a cartoon that was printed in the Christian Science Monitor in 
1990 by Danziger sums it up pretty well. It says ``Statue of Milton 
Friedman is erected in Poland in place of Whathisname.'' And of course 
it depicts a collapsed Lenin on his face with a lady chortling ``Hah!'' 
at the broken statue while other Poles are pulling up a smiling, 
bespeckled Milton Friedman statue and they have crossed out ``Lenin'' 
and carved ``Uncle Miltie'' on the statue base.
  My colleagues, his crowning achievement was establishing with his 
wife the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, based in Indianapolis, 
Indiana, for the purpose of promoting educational choice and reform for 
parents and their children. School choice continues to be

[[Page H8795]]

passionately debated today; yet experiments from the District of 
Columbia to my own State of Florida, under Governor Jeb Bush's lead, 
demonstrate great promise in liberating educational opportunities for 
all. We have done this successfully for colleges since World War II 
with the Montgomery GI bill. So why should we deny school choice for 
kindergartners through senior high school students here in America?
  And, finally, my colleagues, I cannot end a tribute to Dr. Friedman 
without also honoring his wife of 68 years. Rose was his classmate, 
partner economist, fellow radical for freedom, and, I daresay, the love 
of his life. I know she and children David and Janet and their 
grandchildren mourn their beloved Milton but are at peace knowing they 
contributed to this great man who contributed just so much to the 
multitudes in this country. For me when I think of the values not only 
Milton Friedman and his wife promoted, I am moved by this paragraph 
from the Friedmans' memoirs, ``Two Lucky People.'' Mr. Speaker, this 
sentiment is bigger than partisan politics. It is more profound than 
the Washington interest group agenda. It marvelously illustrates 
optimism for what America could be.
  `` . . . So we close this book full of optimism for the future in the 
belief that those ideas will prevail and that our children and 
grandchildren will live in a country that continues to advance rapidly 
in material and biological well-being and gives its citizens ever wider 
freedom to follow their own values and tastes so long as they do not 
interfere with the ability of others to do the same.''
  Milton Friedman, well done. Rest in peace.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield such time 
as he might consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois 
permitting me to speak on this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate for us to pause and reflect on 
the many contributions of Milton Friedman. At any point we have great 
thinkers who challenge conventional wisdom. It is appropriate to honor 
Prof. Friedman. There are some who credit him as the founder of the 
Chicago School of Economics. There are others who see that he was a 
free market paragon. I see him as a symbol of what can be done 
intellectually if people are thinking about the future of problems and 
creative about solutions.
  Milton Friedman understood that, at core, we had a problem in this 
country with poor people who were poor. They didn't have enough money. 
He also had suspicion about the various bureaucratic responses that 
government has assembled over time. And he had presented a provocative 
proposal to have a guaranteed annual income, a flat basic amount that 
everybody would be entitled to, regardless of what they did or who they 
were, that would be cheaper and more effective to administer, that 
would actually deal with the problem of poor people that they didn't 
have money. It would reduce the interference in their lives and allow 
them to respond to a lot of the pressures that we typically associate 
with how families react.
  This was something that was actually briefly considered by the Nixon 
administration, discarded because it was a little radical at the time. 
The costs were somewhat uncertain, although Friedman was convinced that 
in the long run it would actually be cheaper.
  This was the inspiration for the earned income tax credit, which is 
probably the single most effective mechanism, in a Reagan era, that 
Republicans and Democrats could get behind to reduce poverty. It helped 
people in a cost-effective way, diminishing the disincentives for work, 
and was something for which Mr. Friedman never really fully received 
the acclaim that was deserved by him. This has affected millions of 
lives in ways that people on both sides of the aisle of a variety of 
different philosophical perspectives could feel comfortable with.
  I think there is also a lesson here, Mr. Speaker, because there are 
many problems that face us on the floor of this House, that don't have 
to fall in neat little boxes in a philosophical or a partisan way. We 
are looking for example, Mr. Speaker, at the investment in agriculture 
in this country, in a way that cries out for reform. We are spending 
$23 billion in a year of record-high farm prices.
  Now, if my friends on the Republican side and my friends on the 
Democratic side would think of the teachings and the spirit of Milton 
Friedman, we could bring people together in a bipartisan way to reform 
this Depression-era set of programs that is not really an agricultural 
policy. The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill is observed in the breach, not its 
actual implementation. We can design a Friedman approach that would be 
better for the taxpayer, that would be better for the environment, that 
would actually help individual family farmers more effectively and more 
directly.
  It is but one example that I think, that I hope we can tackle as we 
move into a new Congress. Perhaps with a new spirit, with a change in 
the rules so that people will actually be able to more fully and fairly 
debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, that we can take 
things like this that can bring the right and the left, the 
conservative and the liberal, Republicans and Democrats, together to 
solve problems in a way that will be better for the American people, 
and we will be better as an institution.
  It is with great respect that I join in support of the resolution in 
honoring Milton Friedman and his career, and I hope that the next 
Congress is willing to embrace the spirit of his creative mind to be 
able to do some things that actually we can all agree on need to be 
done.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the 
opportunity to join with my colleague, Mr. Stearns, to bring this 
resolution to the floor today. Dr. Milton Friedman is surely a man that 
is worthy of the honor of this House.
  You know, it took courage, it took honor, and it really took genius 
for Dr. Friedman to challenge the prevailing thought and economic 
theories of his day. His meticulous economic analysis presented in his 
books and his lectures and his talks convinced leaders here in the 
United States, and around the world as well, that inflation could be 
controlled and it could be controlled through careful control of money 
supply. That is a theory that has been proven true by the policies of 
our past Fed chairmen over the last several decades.
  Dr. Friedman was known for his ability to defend his theories, to 
defend the free market ideas with both clarity and grace as well. He is 
considered a friend of all the economists of the day, Keynesians and 
socialist economists as well, but he used their critiques to sharpen 
his own theories. He was on TV for a while in a television series, Free 
to Choose, and Dr. Friedman introduced his free market concepts to a 
truly popular audience. He proved himself unafraid to defend himself in 
the marketplace of general ideas as each segment of this, what was a 
10-segment-part program, contained a vigorous debate among politicians 
of the day, economists and historians as well.
  See, Milton Friedman stood, first and foremost, for freedom. He had 
an earnest belief that a free society is truly a strong society.
  So now, fast forward to today. Now, at a time when our freedoms in 
this country and around the world are under attack, we must defend 
ourselves from those who would enslave mankind, and we should do so by 
remembering Dr. Friedman and his intellectual defense of liberty. 
Remember his long and vibrant life. And we also give our lifelong 
condolences to his family that he has left behind. He was truly an 
intellectual giant, and we will all miss him for his abilities and 
contributions to this world, to this country, and the freedoms that we 
enjoy today.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I don't believe that I have any 
additional requests for time. But simply, as a resident of Chicago 
where Milton Friedman did a great deal of his work, we were always 
immensely proud of him, and I am very pleased to support this 
resolution.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

[[Page H8796]]

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a friend, a 
mentor, and a true hero of American liberty and a champion of liberty 
and justice for all of humankind. The death of economist and 
libertarian spokesman, Dr. Milton Friedman, last week silenced a 
powerful voice in the public debate over the role of individual liberty 
in our society.
  As a young man who first became active in politics while I was in 
high school in the mid-1960s, one of the very first writers who helped 
shaped my ideas was Milton Friedman in his classic work, ``Capitalism 
and Freedom.'' Its powerful message of a respect for individual 
liberty, private property, and limited government inspired me as a 
young activist in the Youth for Goldwater at that time, I might add, 
and then again a couple of years later in Youth for Reagan, and 
continued to guide me as I became a speech writer for President Ronald 
Reagan and a Member of the United States Congress.
  Dr. Milton Friedman was always a creative and innovative thinker. I 
might add, he was a decent and wonderful warm-hearted human being as 
well, a man who openly challenged the underlying premises of stateism 
and of socialism and of the authoritarian impulses that we have often 
found in politics. His critiques of government schooling, taxation 
policies, welfare state policies, Social Security, of agricultural 
subsidies and the rest, all of these predicted long ago the problems 
that we are having right now with those very same policies; of what 
they have brought upon our society, the challenges, the tremendous 
challenges we face because we used those policies and that model as a 
solution to uplifting the well-being of our fellow Americans.
  Last week Milton Friedman's voice was silenced by death, but as long 
as his writings are read and his ideas cherished, the principle of 
individual personal economic liberty will remain strong in the United 
States and around the world.
  And I would submit for the Record a statement, an exchange, between 
Milton Friedman and General Westmoreland over the issue of a volunteer 
Army and the draft. I would submit that for the Record as an example of 
the clear thinking and principles, I think, of Milton Friedman.

       In his testimony before the commission, Mr. Westmoreland 
     said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. Mr. 
     Friedman interrupted, ``General, would you rather command an 
     army of slaves?'' Mr. Westmoreland replied, ``I don't like to 
     hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.'' Mr. 
     Friedman then retorted, ``I don't like to hear our patriotic 
     volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are 
     mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, 
     sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary 
     physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat 
     from a mercenary butcher.''

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H. Res. 1089, a 
resolution honoring Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman was one of 
America's greatest champions of liberty. Launching a career as a public 
intellectual at a time when dissenters from the reigning Keynesian 
paradigm where viewed as the equivalent of members of the Flat Earth 
Society, Milton Friedman waged an oftentimes lonely intellectual battle 
on behalf of free markets and individual liberty in the fifties and 
sixties. As the economic crisis of the seventies caused by high taxes, 
high spending, and inflation vindicated Friedman's critiques of 
interventionism, his influence grew--not because he moved to the 
mainstream but because the mainstream moved toward him. Friedman served 
as an advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford and as a member of President 
Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. In 1976, Friedman was awarded 
the Nobel Prize in economics.
  Milton Friedman's most notable contributions to economic theory where 
in the area of monetary policy. His 1963 work A Monetary History of the 
United States 1857-1960, coauthored with Anna Schwartz, was among the 
first works to emphasize the role Federal Reserve policy played in 
causing the Great Depression. As Friedman said, ``The Great Depression, 
like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by 
government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the 
private economy.''
  Friedman's work showed that inflation is not a result of markets but 
is, as he memorably put it, ``always and everywhere a monetary 
phenomenon.'' Friedman was the major originator and theoretician of 
monetarism. Friedman recommended restricting the Federal Reserve's 
authority to increasing the quantity of money by a fixed yearly amount. 
While monetarism is far from the ideal free-market monetary system, 
Milton Friedman deserves credit for focusing the attention of 
economists on the Federal Reserve's responsibility for inflation.
  While he is mainly known for his contributions to economic theory and 
his advocacy of free markets, Milton Friedman considered his advocacy 
against the draft, cumulating in his work as a member of President 
Nixon's Commission on an All-Volunteer Force, his major policy 
achievement. Milton Friedman's opposition to the draft was in part 
based on economic principles, but was mainly motivated by his moral 
commitment to freedom. I ask unanimous consent to insert the attached 
article, ``Milton Friedman: A Tribute,'' by David R. Henderson, which 
details Milton Friedman's efforts against the draft, into the record.
  Unlike many free market economists who downplay their opposition to 
government of encroachments on personal liberty in order to appear 
``respectable,'' Friedman never hesitated to take controversial stands 
in favor of liberty. Thus Friedman was one of the most outspoken 
critics of the federal war on drugs and an early critic of government 
licensing of professionals. Friedman also never allowed fear of losing 
access to power stop him from criticizing politicians who betrayed 
economic liberty. For example, his status as an advisor to President 
Richard Nixon did not stop him from criticizing Nixon's imposition of 
wage and price controls.
  Milton Friedman's greatest contribution to liberty may have been his 
work to educate the public about free market economics. Milton 
Friedman's 1962 work Capitalism and Freedom, introduced millions of 
people to the freedom philosophy, and it remains one of the most 
popular, and influential, pro-freedom books in the world.
  In 1980, Milton Friedman collaborated with his wife Rose on a 
television series, Free to Choose. The series, and the accompanying 
best-selling book, remain among the best introductions to the benefits 
of economic liberty, and rivals Capitalism and Freedom in popularity. 
One of my favorite moments of the show is when Milton Friedman compares 
the robust free market economy of Hong Kong with the then stagnant 
economy of communist China.
  On a personal note, I was honored to receive Milton Friedman's 
endorsement of my congressional campaign in 1996. One particular quote 
from his endorsement exemplifies how Milton Friedman's commitment to 
the free market was rooted in a recognition that a society that 
respects the dignity and worth of every individual is impossible 
without limited government, private property, and sound money: ``We 
very badly need to have more Representatives in the House who 
understand in a principled way the importance of property rights and 
religious freedom for the preservation and extension of human freedom 
in general . . .''
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to pay tribute to Milton Friedman's 
tireless efforts on behalf of human liberty, and I urge all my 
colleagues to join me in supporting H. Res. 1089.

                   [From ANTIWAR.COM, Nov. 20, 2006]

                       Milton Friedman: A Tribute

       ``In the course of his [General Westmoreland's] testimony, 
     he made the statement that he did not want to command an army 
     of mercenaries. I [Milton Friedman] stopped him and said, 
     `General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He 
     drew himself up and said, `I don't like to hear our patriotic 
     volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' But I went on to say, 
     `If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary 
     professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are 
     served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, 
     and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.' That was the 
     last that we heard from the general about mercenaries.''--
     Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People, Chicago: 
     University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.
       In May 1970, a few days after graduating from the 
     University of Winnipeg with a major in mathematics, I flew to 
     Chicago to look into getting a Ph.D. in economics at the 
     University of Chicago. While there, I went to visit Milton 
     Friedman and he invited me into his office. I had a sense 
     that he had been through this routine before--talking to an 
     idealistic young person showing up and wanting an autograph 
     on his copy of Capitalism and Freedom and, beyond that, 
     simply wanting to meet and talk to him. But he didn't treat 
     our meeting as routine; we had a real talk for about 10 
     minutes. When I told him that I'd initially been attracted to 
     libertarianism by reading Ayn Rand, he told me that while 
     Rand was well worth reading, there were many other people 
     worth reading too, and I shouldn't get stuck on her. He also 
     stated, ``Make politics an avocation, not a vocation.'' Both 
     were good pieces of advice.
       The advice didn't stop there. I ended up getting my Ph.D. 
     at UCLA and going to my first academic job as an assistant 
     professor at the University of Rochester's Graduate School of 
     Management. From then on, I wrote Milton a couple of times a 
     year and he always wrote back, sometimes writing in the 
     margins of my letter to comment on my

[[Page H8797]]

     questions and thoughts. When I contemplated my first major 
     career change--leaving academia to work at a think tank--he 
     advised me strongly against it (I didn't take this advice), 
     referring to himself as my ``Dutch uncle.'' I had never heard 
     the term before and didn't bother to look it up until writing 
     this piece, but I understood what he meant from the context: 
     a Dutch uncle is someone who gives you tough love, holding 
     you to high standards because of a benevolent regard for your 
     well-being.
       But here's the bigger point: with his steady and passionate 
     work to end the military draft, Milton Friedman was the Dutch 
     uncle of every young man in the United States. Or even 
     better, he was like a favorite uncle that they'd never even 
     met. He cared more for them than any president, any general, 
     or any defense secretary has ever cared. How so? Because he 
     wanted every young man to be free to choose whether to join 
     the military or not.
       Milton Friedman's work against the draft began in December 
     1966, when he gave a presentation at a four-day conference at 
     the University of Chicago. Various prominent and less-
     prominent academics, politicians, and activists had been 
     invited. Papers had been commissioned, and the authors gave 
     summaries, after which the discussion was open to all. 
     Fortunately, the discussion was transcribed. The papers and 
     discussions appear in a book edited by sociologist Sol Tax 
     and titled The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives. 
     The invitees included two young anti-draft congressmen, 
     Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wisc.) and Donald Rumsfeld (R-Ill.), 
     and one pro-draft senator, Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Also 
     attending were pro-draft anthropologist Margaret Mead and 
     anti-draft economists Milton Friedman and Walter Oi. Friedman 
     gave the general economic and philosophical case for a 
     voluntary military in his presentation, ``Why Not a Voluntary 
     Army?'' Friedman pointed out that the draft is a tax on young 
     men. He stated:
       ``When a young man is forced to serve at $45 a week, 
     including the cost of his keep, of his uniforms, and his 
     dependency allowances, and there are many civilian 
     opportunities available to him at something like $100 a week, 
     he is paying $55 a week in an implicit tax. . . . And if you 
     were to add to those taxes in kind, the costs imposed on 
     universities and colleges; of seating, housing, and 
     entertaining young men who would otherwise be doing 
     productive work; if you were to add to that the costs imposed 
     on industry by the fact that they can only offer young men 
     who are in danger of being drafted stopgap jobs, and cannot 
     effectively invest money in training them; if you were to add 
     to that the costs imposed on individuals of a financial kind 
     by their marrying earlier or having children at an earlier 
     stage, and so on; if you were to add all these up, there is 
     no doubt at all in my mind that the cost of a volunteer 
     force, correctly calculated, would be very much smaller than 
     the amount we are now spending in manning our Armed Forces.''
       Reading through the whole Sol Tax volume, with all the 
     papers and transcripts of the discussion, I had the sense 
     that there was a coalescing of views over the four days, as 
     people from various parts of the ideological spectrum found 
     that they had in common a strong antipathy to the draft and 
     found also that the economists made a surprisingly strong 
     economic case. Both Friedman's speech and his various 
     comments at the conference still make compelling reading. One 
     of his best rhetorical flourishes was his criticism of the 
     charge that those who advocate ending the draft are 
     advocating a ``mercenary'' army. You'll recognize the same 
     kind of argument he used against Westmoreland in the lead 
     quote of this article. Friedman said:
       ``Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-
     volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My army is 
     `volunteer,' your army is `professional,' and the enemy's 
     army is `mercenary.' All these three words mean exactly 
     the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a 
     mercenary professor, and I am a professional professor. 
     And all you people around here are mercenary professional 
     people. And I trust you realize that. It's always a puzzle 
     to me why people should think that the term `mercenary' 
     somehow has a negative connotation. I remind you of that 
     wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, `You do 
     not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker, 
     but to his proper regard for his own interest.' And this 
     is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary 
     motives are among the least unattractive that we have.'' 
     (p. 366)
       In the margin of my 35-year-old, dog-eared copy of the Sol 
     Tax book containing this passage, I wrote one word: ``Wow!'' 
     This is rhetoric at its best, a tight argument passionately 
     stated. When I read this at about age 18, just a year before 
     meeting Friedman in his office, I felt cared-for. 
     Fortunately, being Canadian, I wasn't vulnerable to the 
     draft. But I had the thought that if I had grown up in United 
     States, I would be so thankful that here was this man, 
     himself well beyond draft age and who could probably figure 
     out how to get his son out of the draft, and yet who cared 
     enough to be out in front on this issue.
       Two of Friedman's comments about this conference are worth 
     noting. Writing some 30 years later, Friedman noted that the 
     74 invited participants ``included essentially everyone who 
     had written or spoken at all extensively on either side of 
     the controversy about the draft, as well as a number of 
     students.'' (Two Lucky People, p. 377.) Friedman's other 
     comment is also worth citing:
       ``I have attended many conferences. I have never attended 
     any other that had so dramatic an effect on the participants. 
     A straw poll taken at the outset of the conference recorded 
     two-thirds of the participants in favor of the draft; a 
     similar poll at the end, two-thirds opposed. I believe that 
     this conference was the key event that started the ball 
     rolling decisively toward ending the draft.'' (p. 378.)
       Friedman didn't stop there. He wrote a number of articles 
     in his tri-weekly column in Newsweek making the case against 
     the draft. Friedman was one of 15 people chosen for Nixon's 
     Commission on the All-Volunteer Force. By his estimate, five 
     started off being against the draft, five in favor, and five 
     on the fence. By the end, the Commission was able to come out 
     with a 14-0 consensus in favor of ending the draft. Black 
     leader Roy Wilkins, in a Feb. 6, 1970 letter to Nixon, stated 
     he had been unable to attend many of the meetings due to a 
     major illness and, therefore, could not support its specific 
     recommendations; Wilkins did state, however, that he endorsed 
     the idea of moving toward an all-volunteer armed force. (The 
     Report of the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer 
     Armed Force, New York: Collier Books, 1970; letter from Roy 
     Wilkins.)
       It was at one of these meetings that Friedman put 
     Westmoreland on the spot with his comeback about slaves. 
     Knowing that Friedman was persuasive and focused and also a 
     warm human being, I credit him with having swung at least a 
     few of the Commission members in his direction. And although 
     Nixon took his sweet time acting on the recommendations, 
     finally, at the start of his second term, he let the draft 
     expire.
       Friedman kibitzed in his Newsweek column, never letting up. 
     He once wrote that the draft ``is almost the only issue on 
     which I have engaged in any extensive personal lobbying with 
     members of the House and Senate.'' (Milton Friedman, An 
     Economist's Protest, 2nd ed., Glen Ridge, N.J.: Thomas Horton 
     and Daughters, 1975, p. 188.)
       And Friedman stuck around as an opponent of the draft when 
     the going got tough. In the late 1970s, high inflation caused 
     a serious drop in real military pay and a consequent increase 
     in difficulty meeting recruiting quotas. Of all the threats 
     to bring back the draft in the last 32 years, the threat in 
     1979 to 1980 was the most serious. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) held 
     hearings with the goal of building support for the draft and, 
     at least, registration for a future draft. Hoover economist 
     Martin Anderson organized an important conference on the 
     draft at the Hoover Institution in November 1979 and invited 
     the top proponents and opponents of the draft. (For the 
     papers and transcript of the discussion, see Martin Anderson, 
     ed., Registration and the Draft: Proceedings of the Hoover-
     Rochester Conference on the All-Volunteer Force, Stanford, 
     California: Hoover Institution Press, 1982.) Friedman was one 
     of the attendees and, at the end, debated Congressman Pete 
     McCloskey on the draft. It was actually the weakest 
     performance I've ever seen by Friedman, but Friedman's 
     ``weak'' is still pretty good.
       In 1980, in response to the threat from Sam Nunn, I wrote 
     and circulated the following ``Economists' Statement in 
     Opposition to the Draft'':
       ``We, the undersigned, oppose moves toward the reimposition 
     of the draft. The draft would be a more costly way of 
     maintaining the military than an all-volunteer force. Those 
     who claim that a draft costs less than a volunteer military 
     cite as a savings the lower wages that the government can get 
     away with paying draftees. But they leave out the burden 
     imposed on the draftees themselves. Since a draft would force 
     many young people to delay or forego entirely other 
     activities valuable to them and to the rest of society, the 
     real cost of military manpower would be substantially more 
     than the wages draftees would be paid. Saying that a draft 
     would reduce the cost of the military is like saying that the 
     pyramids were cheap because they were built with slave 
     labor.''
       Friedman's speed at signing made it much easier, I'm sure, 
     to get the signatures of almost 300 other prominent and not-
     so-prominent economists, including Kenneth Boulding, Harold 
     Demsetz, David Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Donald McCloskey, 
     William Meckling, Allen H. Meltzer, James C. Miller III, 
     William A. Niskanen, Mancur Olson, Sam Peltzman, Murray 
     Rothbard, Jeremy J. Siegel, Vernon Smith, Beryl W. Sprinkel, 
     Jerome Stein, and James L. Sweeney.
       The statement, with about 150 signatures, was published as 
     a full-page ad in Libertarian Review, Inquiry, and The 
     Progressive.
       Milton Friedman and I had our differences about foreign 
     policy. I tried, in vain, to persuade him to be against the 
     first Gulf war. Even there, though, he publicly supported, in 
     an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, my economic 
     argument against the war. He stated, ``Henderson's analysis 
     is correct. There is no justification for intervention on 
     grounds of oil'' (Jonathan Marshall, ``Economists Say 
     Iraq's Threat to U.S. Oil Supply Is Exaggerated,'' San 
     Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 29, 1990.) Friedman did oppose 
     the second Gulf war, as evidenced in an interview in the 
     Wall Street Journal, in which he called it, correctly, 
     ``aggression.'' (Tunku Varadarajan, ``The Romance of 
     Economics,'' Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2006; page 
     A10).
       As far as I know, though, Friedman did not oppose the 
     second Gulf war publicly when it mattered most--that is, 
     before the March 2003 invasion. But on the draft, Friedman 
     never wavered. For that, many young American men owe him a 
     lot.

[[Page H8798]]

       Two weeks ago, I attended a conference in Guatemala at 
     which it was announced that Friedman had had a bad fall and 
     was in the hospital. The person who announced it, Bob 
     Chitester, producer of the Friedmans' 1980 television series, 
     Free to Choose, handed out buttons that read, ``Have you 
     thanked Milton Friedman today?'' Thanks, Uncle Miltie.

  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 1089.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds of those voting having 
responded in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the 
resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________