Roscoe Bartlett: “Milton Friedman made the observation that the government spends all the money we give it, plus as much more as it can…”

“Milton Friedman made the observation that the government spends all the money we give it, plus as much more as it can get away with. What the American people need to do is to make it very difficult for Congress to spend more money. When we are told what deficits are going to be and when we will turn the corner and finally have a surplus, this is all on the basis of the unified budget. So add roughly $200 billion a year to all of the deficit figures, and push into the future, and I do not know how far into the future, push into the future the date that we will in fact balance the budget. I think that the American people want us to have a balanced budget. I do not think they want us to balance the budget by raising taxes; I think they want us to balance the budget by cutting spending. That is what we do in our family: We look at where the money is going and where we can cut expenses so we can live within our budget.”