Liberty Pen: Professor Milton Friedman: ‘The Free Lunch Myth’

Source:Liberty Pen- Professor Milton Friedman in 1978.

Source:FreeState Now

“Milton Friedman explodes the myth that government can provide goods and services at no one’s expense. Full video available for purchase at:Idea Channel. Liberty Pen" 

From Liberty Pen 

The fact is there is no free lunch from government. Even if you are technically receiving services for free like in public assistance, that is for anyone working and gets paid to work, because anyone who works pays taxes to finance some government service. We just pay for these services in taxes, and not paying for them out-of-pocket, or with a credit card at a store. Or buying those products online.

Anytime you hear a politician, or political candidate say that they can give you this service for free, or that government should provide these services for free, ask them how much it will cost you:

The politician will probably say the government services that they’re proposing will be probably free for you. But then you should say: “If this service will be free, how is it paid for?” And they’ll say from this tax, or that tax, or creating a new tax. And then you should say directly and not as a question: “So this service won’t be free, because I’ll be paying for it in new taxes, or a new tax increase. Or this service will be cut to pay for this new service.” And the politician, or candidate might still say: “No. You’re not going to pay for this new program in taxes. Business’s will, or wealthy people will.”

Well, the politician will still be wrong. Because every time you increase the cost of doing business, the consumers end up paying for that new cost. Business’s, are for-profit and aren’t patriotic enough generally to say: “Look, we know our government needs to do this and we’ll be happy to pay for it ourselves.” So, you increases taxes on business’s and the consumer will end pay for that new tax increase, or at least part of it.