552 Quotes by Milton Friedman

It’s a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don’t approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else.

See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true.

If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don’t be surprised if you get unemployment.

The big problem for a democratic government – democrat with a small “d” – is how to hold down government spending.

I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it’s only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.

Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.

Why is it that private insurance companies are not in trouble because people are getting older? Aren’t they subject to the same demographics? The difference is that they’ve accumulated a fund, not a pay-in, pay-out system.

Making prohibition work is like making water run uphill; it’s against nature.