The Texas Public Policy Foundation and anti-government think tanks across the country are mourning the death of Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who championed a mixed bag of big ideas, all of them centering on the free-enterprise mantra. Friedman died Thursday in San Francisco. He was 94. In Texas, supporters of tax-financed private school vouchers have long drawn inspiration from Friedman when arguing the whys and wherefores of a privatized school system. Not that the Friedman argument ever does them any good, but still.
Friedman’s followers are less willing to celebrate (at least publicly)the free-thinker’s beliefs that laws against drugs and prostitution are just plain silly. Silly like Ted Haggard, for instance. But that’s another story. Anyway, RIP Milton.
This article appears in November 10 • 2006.
