Free To Choose Network: Professor Milton Friedman- 'Why Do We Let This Happen? (1978)'

Source:Free To Choose Network- I hope you get Professor Friedman's point. LOL

"In this archival video from FTCN, Milton Friedman explains why he believes people allow their liberties to be eroded. The question and the answer are as relevant today as ever. This video was taken at Cornell University in around 1978." 

From Free To Choose Network 

I believe Professor Friedman makes two very good points here about why we get the government that we do and then I believe the rest is debatable. 

Professor Friedman was talking about some conference he intended that President Gerald Ford put together in the mid 1970s about inflation. And I guess they went around the table and asked each person there how they would cut inflation. And apparently each person said that you cut inflation by cutting spending. But you don't cut the programs that they like: 

"Hey, it's not me causing these deficits and inflation. Look at everyone else at the table instead. There's nothing wasteful about corporate and agriculture welfare. And I need those tax deductions for all of my vacation homes. Otherwise I couldn't afford to go on vacation there." 

And these are just a few examples wasteful, big government spending. Americans taxpayers are financially responsible for the national defense of other developed countries that are financially and personally capable of defending themselves. 

You look at infrastructure where contracts are rewarded based on who knows who in Congress or at the Department of Transportation and as a result we get bridges to nowhere and roads that only 10 people use, while we have crumbling bridges and roads in high populated areas. 

And then the other good point that Professor Friedman made about we get the government that we get, because we live in a democratic system where you have a majority of voters who want the government that we get. So to quote the great political satirist George Carlin: "Maybe it's not the politicians who suck" maybe it's the voters who vote for the politicians who give us all the government that we get who suck.