[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 19 (Monday, May 13, 2002)]
[Pages 782-784]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Tribute to Milton Friedman

May 9, 2002

    Well, thank you all very much. It's an honor for me to be here to 
pay tribute to a hero of freedom, Milton Friedman. He has used a 
brilliant mind to advance a moral vision: The vision of a society where 
men and women are free, free to choose, but where government is not as 
free to override their decisions.
    That vision has changed America, and it is changing the world. All 
of us owe a tremendous debt to this man's towering intellect and his 
devotion to liberty. So it's my honor to

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welcome you all to the White House. Thank you for coming. I'm looking 
forward to having lunch. [Laughter]
    I appreciate Larry Lindsey, and I want to thank him for his 
leadership and his friendship. I, of course, want to welcome Rose 
Friedman as well. I'm so honored that the Secretary of Defense, Don 
Rumsfeld, has joined us as well as the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul 
Wolfowitz. I want to thank the Chairman for being here. Chairman 
Greenspan is a steady influence on our country, and I appreciate your 
leadership. I want to welcome Dr. Gary Becker, professor at the 
University of Chicago, who mentored Milton Friedman--[laughter]--a Nobel 
Prize winner. And I want to thank Guity for coming as well. Welcome. And 
I appreciate Ed Meese being here as well. It's great to see you, 
General.
    Milton Friedman has shown us that when government attempts to 
substitute its own judgments for the judgments of free people, the 
results are usually disastrous. In contrast to the free market's 
invisible hand, which improves the lives of people, the government's 
invisible foot tramples on people's hopes and destroys their dreams.
    He has never claimed that free markets are perfect. Yet he has 
demonstrated that even an imperfect market produces better results than 
arrogant experts and grasping bureaucrats. But Milton Friedman does not 
object to government controls solely because they are ineffective. His 
deeper objectives flow from a moral framework. He has taught us that a 
free market system's main justification is its moral strength. Human 
freedom serves the cause of human dignity. Freedom rewards creativity 
and work, and you cannot reduce freedom in our economy without reducing 
freedom in our lives.
    As Milton Friedman has written, ``I know of no society that has been 
marked by a large measure of political freedom and that has not also 
used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of 
economic activity.'' This viewpoint was once controversial, as was 
Milton Friedman, himself.
    When he began his work, the conventional wisdom held that 
capitalism's days were numbered. Free market systems were thought to be 
unsuited to modern problems. Today, we recognize that free markets are 
the great engines of economic development. They are the source of wealth 
and the hope of a world weary of poverty and weary of oppression.
    We have seen Milton Friedman's ideas at work in Chile, where a group 
of economists called the ``Chicago Boys'' brought inflation under 
control and laid the groundwork for economic success. We have seen them 
at work in Russia, where the Government recently adopted a 13 percent 
flat tax with impressive results. We have seen them at work in Sweden, 
which has adopted personal retirement accounts. We have seen them even 
at work in China, where the Government conceded long ago that Marxism 
was, in their words, ``no longer suited'' to China's problems. These are 
extraordinary developments. They demonstrate that the rest of the world 
is finally catching up with Milton Friedman. [Laughter]
    Yet Milton Friedman has done more than defend freedom as an abstract 
ideal. He has creatively applied the power of freedom to the problems of 
our own country, and in the process he has become an influential social 
reformer.
    Milton has shown us how freedom can enhance our national security. 
He is the intellectual godfather of our all-volunteer army. He argued 
that America could rely on the dedication of soldiers who serve in armed 
forces of their own free will, and he was right. We have recently seen 
the quality and idealism and skill of the all-volunteer army. Those who 
serve our country by choice are serving it with honor.
    Milton Friedman has also shown us how freedom can foster educational 
reform. For many years, he has been a tireless advocate of school choice 
as a way of empowering parents and improving the performance of our 
schools. Educational reform advances when parents have the information 
and the authority to push for reform. And there is no greater authority 
than a good alternative. Poor children in America need better options 
when they're trapped in schools that will not teach and will not change.
    In all of these issues and debates, Milton Friedman has argued with 
consistency and courage and trademark bluntness. His ideas

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have influence around the world. And by his strength of conviction, he 
has served his country with distinction. And it has been recognized as 
such: After all, he received the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics, and in 
1988 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
    In 1938, Milton Friedman married Rose Director, an outstanding 
economist in her own right, and the only person known to have ever won 
an argument with Milton. [Laughter] Half a century later, Milton and 
Rose Friedman published a joint memoir called ``Two Lucky People.'' 
There's no doubt that Milton and Rose Friedman have been lucky, but not 
as lucky as America. We're lucky that their parents chose to immigrate 
from Europe. We're lucky they gave them the love and encouragement they 
needed to be bold and to succeed. We're lucky that Milton Friedman 
flunked some of his qualifying exams to become an actuary--[laughter]--
and became an economist, instead. [Laughter] We're thankful for those 
tough exams--[laughter]--but not nearly as thankful as we are for the 
lives and talents and intellect of Milton and Rose Friedman.
    May God bless them both, and welcome.

Note: The President spoke at 11:37 a.m. in Presidential Hall in the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he 
referred to Gary S. Becker, professor of economics and sociology at the 
University of Chicago, and his wife, Guity; and former Attorney General 
Edwin Meese.