June 11, 2004;
Page A8
Freedom's
Friend
By MILTON FRIEDMAN
I first met Ronald Reagan in 1967,
shortly after he had become governor of California. We talked about his
plans for higher education in the state. He clearly understood the
economics of higher education -- a system in California whereby the
residents of Watts subsidized the college education of the children from
Beverly Hills -- and was determined to do something about it.
I first realized what a truly
extraordinary person he was in early 1973 when I spent an unforgettable
day with him barnstorming across California to promote his Proposition 1
-- an amendment to the state constitution that would set a limit to the
amount the state could spend in any year. We flew in a small private plane
from place to place and at each stop held a press conference. In between,
Gov. Reagan talked freely about his life and views. By the time we
returned to our final press interview in Los Angeles, I was able to give
an enthusiastic yes to a reporter's question whether I would support
Reagan for president. And, I may say, I have never been disappointed
since.
* * *
Proposition 1 was narrowly
defeated but it started a movement that is still very much alive, as
evidenced by the recent passage of a "Prop 1" look-alike in
Colorado. Moreover, it was only one way of achieving one major component
of his policy from the beginning of his career: holding down non-defense
government spending as a way to limit the size of government. Defense
spending was another thing. That financed a -- or, the -- basic function
of the federal government, and he used it for his great achievement of
winning the Cold War by outspending the Soviet Union without having to
outfight them on a bloody battlefield.
Figure 1 (above) depicts President
Reagan's extraordinary success in changing the course of non-defense
spending. The trend before Mr. Reagan is one of galloping socialism. Had
it continued, federal non-defense spending would be more than half again
what it is now. Mr. Reagan brought the gallop to a literal standstill. He
did so in three ways:
•
First, by slashing tax rates and so cutting the Congress's allowance.
•
Second, by being willing to take a severe recession to end inflation. In
my opinion, no other postwar president would have been willing to back the
Volcker Fed in its tough stance in 1981-82. I can testify from personal
knowledge that Mr. Reagan knew what he was doing. He understood that there
was no way of ending inflation without monetary restraint and a temporary
recession. As in every area, he stuck to his principles and looked at the
long term.
•
Third, and in some ways the least recognized, by attacking government
regulations. Figure 2 (below) tells as remarkable a story as Figure 1. It
plots the number of pages added to the Federal Register each year. The
Federal Register records the thousands of detailed rules and regulations
that federal agencies churn out in the course of a year. They are not laws
and yet they have the effect of laws and like laws impose costs and
restrain activities. Here too, the period before President Reagan was one
of galloping socialism. The Reagan years were ones of retreating
socialism, and the post-Reagan years, of creeping socialism.
To Mr. Reagan, of course, holding
down government spending was a means to an end, not an end in itself. That
end was freedom, human freedom, the right of every individual to pursue
his own objectives and values so long as he does not interfere with the
corresponding right of others. That was his end in every phase of his
remarkable career.
We still have a long way to go to
achieve the optimum degree of freedom. But few people in human history
have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom than Ronald
Wilson Reagan.
Mr. Friedman, a Nobel laureate
in economics, is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is
co-author, with his wife Rose, of "Two Lucky People: Memoirs"
(University of Chicago Press, 1998).
