A Quote by Milton Friedman

Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.

Milton Friedman

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Active Against Between Citizens Come Contracts Cost Defense Economy Enforce Freedom Functions Good Good Intentions Government Help Individuals Inefficiency Intentions Interests Lack Legislate Loss Military Morality Motivation Nation Player Primary Property Protect Provide Pursuit Rearrange Referee Should Special Special Interest Special Interests Themselves Three Tries

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Milton Friedman
American - Economist
July 31, 1912 - November 16, 2006

When government - in pursuit of good intentions - tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.

Milton Friedman

A famous, very often quoted phrase says: "That government is best, which governs least." I do not believe this to be a correct description of of the functions of a good government. Government ought to do all the things for which it is needed and for which it is established. Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government within a free system, within the system of the market economy.

Ludwig von Mises

Government should enforce rule of law. It should enforce contracts, it should protect people bodily from being attacked by criminals. And when the government does those things, it is facilitating liberty. When it goes beyond those things, it becomes destructive to both human happiness and human liberty.

Grover Norquist

Conservatives believe government's principal functions are the preservation of freedom and removal of restraints on the individual. Liberalism's ascent in the first two-thirds of this century reflected the new belief that government should also confer capacities on individuals. Liberalism's decline in the final third of this century has reflected doubts about whether government can be good at that, or whether government that is good at that is good for the nation's character.

George Will

The government being the peoples business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.

William Jennings Bryan

Year after year in Washington, budget debates seem to come down to an old, tired argument: on one side, those who want more government, regardless of the cost; on the other, those who want less government, regardless of the need....Government has a role, and an important role. Yet, too much government crowds out initiative and hard work, private charity and the private economy....Government should be active, but limited; engaged, but not overbearing.

George W. Bush

The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves. From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line. Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it.

Harry Browne

It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. Under a republic the institutions of learning, while bound by the constitution and laws, are in no way subservient to the government.

Calvin Coolidge

The government should urgently speed its adoption of AI to reduce the amount of time individuals spend unnecessarily interacting with the government and increase the speed of government response to citizens.

Will Hurd

Our government should do everything it can to ensure the successful prosecution of those responsible for the murders of U.S. citizens abroad. It should provide resources as needed, and it should make it clear to the authorities in Belgrade that inaction does have repercussions on bilateral relations.

Tim Bishop

I don't believe the government should determine what a woman does in this area any more than it should tell a chief executive how to run a company. Personal and family matters, relationships between doctors and patients should not be within the purview of government.

Christine Todd Whitman

Citizens ... should be practitioners of civic virtue in their conduct toward government. They should be ever willing to fulfill the duties of citizenship. This includes compulsory duties like military service and the numerous voluntary actions they must take if they are to preserve the principle of limited government through citizen self-reliance.

Dallin H. Oaks

Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.

David R. Brower

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

Hubert H. Humphrey

To make sure we aren't training people for jobs that don't exist, the government should provide companies with loans or loan guarantees. And the government should also directly employ people to do things like coastal restoration, land restoration, reforestation and similar programs that absorb carbon and protect America's beauty.

Van Jones

A Quote by Milton Friedman

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