Political Quotes

“I rise today to honor the life of a dear friend and a former colleague of mine, Jerry Ellig. Some 2 weeks ago, at just 58 years old, Jerry passed away. Jerry and I met in June of 2001. We were both working in the George W. Bush administration. We were working together at the Federal Trade Commission. I had just been hired, at all of 30 years old, to run the Policy Planning Office, and Jerry was my Deputy. I hadn't met Jerry. Our boss Tim Muris, the Chairman, had brought Jerry in beforehand. It is always a dangerous thing when somebody else hires your Deputy, but in this case, Tim did me an enormous favor. Jerry was a colleague of Tim's from George Mason University, a Ph.D. economist, a brilliant man, a lover of liberty. And Jerry and I, for the next 2 years, ran the Policy Planning Office together, and we became dear friends. I don't know that I ever saw Jerry without a smile, without a twinkle in his eye. He always had a joyful spirit, a mischievous grin. And he believed in the power of truth. He became an economist because, I think, Jerry was born to be an economist. I have no doubt playing with his LEGOs as a child, he thought about supply and demand and price elasticity. And he believed in the power of free markets. One of the things that the Policy Planning Office did was something called competition advocacy. Now, the FTC statutory mandate is to defend the competition. There are some 75 Ph.D. economists on the full- time staff at the FTC.…”