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Nov. 25, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
06:14
What Would Milton Friedman say About Gov't Spending?
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This is the great economist, the late economist, Milton Friedman, talking about these bureaucratic agencies and which ones, in his opinion, could be chopped off.
Mind you, this is decades ago.
All right, but the ones that we could do away with.
Let's go ahead and roll the clip.
Por favor.
Department of Agriculture.
Abolish.
Gone.
Department of Commerce.
Abolish.
Gone.
Department of Defense.
Keep.
Keep it.
Department of Education.
Abolish.
Gone.
Energy?
Abolish.
Except that energy ties in with the military.
Well, then we shove it under defense.
The little bit that handles the nuclear plutonium and so forth goes under defense, but we abolish the rest of it.
Health and human services?
There is room for some public health activities to prevent contagion.
Such a thing as, for example...
So you'd keep the National Institutes of Health, say, and the Center for Disease Control down in Atlanta?
No, no, not the National Institutes of Health.
Those are mostly research agencies.
No, no.
That's a question of whether the government should be involved in financing research.
And the answer is no.
Well, that's a very complicated issue, and it's not an easy answer with respect to that.
We'll eliminate half of the Department of Health and Human Services?
Yes, something like that.
Okay, one half.
There we go.
Housing and Urban Development?
Out.
Didn't even pause over that one.
Department of the Interior.
Oh, well, but housing and urban development have done an enormous amount of harm.
My God!
If you think of the way in which they've destroyed parts of cities under the rubric of eliminating slums.
You know, you remember that Martin Anderson wrote a book on the federal bulldozer describing the effect of the urban development.
There have been many more dwelling units torn down.
In the name of public housing that have been built.
Jack Kemp has proposed selling to the current inhabitants of public housing their unit, their townhouse, their apartment, for a dollar apiece, and just shifting the ownership to the people who live...
If you got rid of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would be worth doing that.
All right.
Done.
That's gone.
Department of the Interior, your beloved National Park Service.
The problem there is, you first have to sell off all the land that the government owns.
But that's what you should do.
But it could be done pretty quickly.
It could be done.
You should do that.
There's no reason for the government to own.
The government now owns something like one-third of all the land in the country.
And that's too much.
Should go down to zero.
Well, not entirely zero.
They ought to own the land on which government buildings are.
Okay, terrific.
Department of Justice.
Oh, yes.
Keep that one.
Keep that one.
Labor?
No.
Gone.
State?
Keep.
Keep it.
Transportation?
Gone.
Gone.
The Treasury?
You have to keep it to collect taxes.
All right.
Collect taxes through the Treasury.
Veterans Affairs?
You can regard the Veteran Affairs as a way of paying, essentially, salaries for services of those who have been in the armed force, but you ought to be able to get rid of it.
You should be able to pay it off.
Pay it off.
Pay off lump sums, perhaps, and just get rid of it.
Okay, Milton Friedman, if you are made dictator for one day, the next day the American government...
No, I wouldn't.
No, no.
I don't want to be made dictator.
You wouldn't.
I don't believe in dictators.
Okay.
I believe we want to bring about change by the agreement for the citizens.
I don't believe in arbitrary rule.
Let me put it this way, then.
Your proposal...
If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things.
We have no right to impose them, even if we had the power to do it.
All right.
From 14 departments down to four and a half.
Two basic fundamental functions.
What are its fundamental functions?
Preserve the peace.
Defend the country.
Provide a mechanism whereby individuals can adjudicate their disputes.
That's the Justice Department.
Protect individuals from being coerced by other individuals.
The police function.
Right.
And now, this is both the central government and the state and local governments.
The police function is primarily local and central.
Right.
And those are the fundamental functions of government, in my opinion.
Milton Friedman, thank you very much.
All right.
That was the great Milton Friedman.
I mean, just what a wonderful clip.
And I think the reason why the left hates Trump so much...
It's because he believes that.
It's the same reason they hated Ronald Reagan.
It's the same reason that, in my opinion, when he got things under control, President Calvin Coolidge back in the day, roaring 20s, and then right after his administration, they blamed him for the Great Depression and all this kind of nonsense.
The people that really go to Washington to shake things up, they can't stand.
And they'll lead you to believe.
And I haven't found this Bill Maher clip yet, so I'll keep searching for it.
But they'll lead you to believe that we need this expert class, that we need these bureaucratic agencies in order for America to be this great country.
But the truth of the matter is we didn't start out like that.
A lot of these agencies didn't come around for quite some time, over 100 years plus, after the inception of our country.
It's absolutely insane what we're witnessing.
So you get a disruptor like you see in President Trump and some of his nominations.
I don't necessarily like all of the nominations, but I didn't run for president.
I do believe that personnel is policy.
And if President Trump believes that certain people are going to be good for his agenda, then so be it.
Now, there are some people...
Quite frankly, yeah, I'm a little concerned about.
But we'll have to wait and see what happens.
I know that every single one of them answers to President Trump, and he is actually a real leader.
So unlike the people that are running the White House now, President Trump will have the final say.
So I'm very comfortable with that, and I'm very confident when it comes to that.
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