Milton Friedman, RIP
November 16, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
In this 1986 photo taken at a Heritage Foundation event, Milton Friedman, right, poses with his wife Rose, Heritage President Ed Feulner and President Ronald Reagan.
Free-market economist Milton Friedman died today at age 94. His pioneering work helped make the conservative movement what it is today.
An opponent of government controls on the economy, the University of Chicago professor was among the most influential economists of the 20th century. The Nobel Prize laureate was a successful advocate for a number of conservative ideas, such as the use of monetary policy to control inflation, an all-volunteer military and school vouchers.
“Milton Friedman was small in stature but a giant in the world of ideas,” Heritage President Ed Feulner said in a statement on his passing. “His passion and wisdom extended well beyond the field of economics and combined to make him one of the most compelling advocates of human freedom the world has known.”
Feulner explained that his “ideas have empowered millions of people to pursue their destiny, opening for them new economic and educational opportunities that have made them more productive and more prosperous.”
In a 1997 essay reproduced in The March of Freedom, Feulner praised Friedman for his work on behalf of free enterprise.
Milton Friedman is the spokesman and symbol of the remarkable revival of neoclassical economics in our time. As a groundbreaking scholar, influential teacher, intimidating debater, television personality, widely read columnist and advisor to presidents and prime ministers, he has defended the efficiency and nobility of markets and revealed the justice found in freedom.
Click here to read the entire essay (PDF excerpt from The March of Freedom).
Friedman’s legacy of freedom continues to inspire us at The Heritage Foundation, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Friedman’s work over the past decades.
The Heritage Foundation mourns his passing. He was an inspiration to believers in freedom and liberty.
More and more pork
“Congress’s pork gravy train rolls on despite promises to slow or stop it,” Heritage budget analysts Brian Riedl and Michelle Muccio report. “As Congress returns to finish the final 11 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2007, it will take up House and Senate bills currently containing an estimated 10,000 pork projects, about as many as last year.”
Contained in these bills are some extravagant special-interest handouts.
Feulner awarded freedom prize
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on Tuesday awarded Heritage President Ed Feulner the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom.
In a letter read at the medal ceremony, Czech President Vaclav Klaus praised Feulner’s work on behalf of international freedom.
Click here to find out what President Klaus had to say about Ed Feulner.
Getting Heritage research into the right hands
It’s not enough that Heritage’s experts simply publish their papers. We need to ensure that decision-makers in government and the private sector see our research. Fortunately, our Communications and Marketing office, our External Relations office and other departments are very good at what they do.
Here are two recent examples of their success in taking Heritage’s message of conservative reform to the right people.
- Yesterday’s issue of “Stand To,” an e-mail newsletter sent early each morning to top military officials, pointed readers to a new paper by Heritage’s Mackenzie Eaglen on the need to properly equip the National Guard. Eaglen argues for a new modernization program to give the Guard the equipment it needs.
- A new paper on state-based health care reforms by Heritage experts Ed Haislmaier and Nina Owcharenko appears in the latest issue of Health Affairs, a leading health industry journal. They argue for consumer-based health care reforms combined with a restructuring of subsidies, which would allow individual choice in health care and help poor individuals purchase health coverage instead of subsidizing hospitals.
In other news
- The leadership of the next Senate has been chosen: Harry Reid (D-NV) will be Majority Leader, and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will be Minority Leader. Trent Lott (R-MS), who once served as Majority Leader, will be the new Minority Whip.
- House Democrats have chosen Steny Hoyer (D-MD) as the next Majority Leader despite the support of future Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for Jack Murtha (D-PA). Republicans pick their leadership tomorrow.
- San Francisco’s school board has abolished the city’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. Advocates of the change argued that the JROTC encouraged militarism and did too little to promote “a curriculum of peace.”
- Gen. John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that timetables for withdrawal from Iraq would hamper American efforts to transition security to Iraqi forces.
- Seventy of the 150 Iraqis kidnapped by terrorists from the Higher Education Ministry in Baghdad earlier this week have been released. Many of the released had been tortured.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Friday, November 16 at 12:30 p.m., author and politician J. William Middendorf looks back on Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for president and how it set the stage for later conservative successes.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.