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to back its issue regardless of what you do about other issues.
Put together enough such groups and you will have a 51 percent
majority. That is the kind of logrolling majority that rules the
country.
The proposed amendments would alter the conditions under
which legislators—state or federal, as the case may be—operate
by limiting the total amount they are authorized to appropriate.
The amendments would give the government a limited budget,
specified in advance, the way each of us has a limited budget.
Much special interest legislation is undesirable, but it is never
clearly and unmistakably bad. On the contrary, every measure
will be represented as serving a good cause. The problem is that
there are an infinite number of good causes. Currently, a legislator
is in a weak position to oppose a
"
good
"
cause. If he objects that
it will raise taxes, he will be labeled a reactionary who is willing
to sacrifice human need for base mercenary reasons—after all,
this good cause will only require raising taxes by a few cents or
dollars per person. The legislator is in a far better position if he
can say, "Yes, yours is a good cause, but we have a fixed budget.
More money for your cause means less for others. Which of
these others should be cut?" The effect would be to require the
special interests to compete with one another for a bigger share
of a fixed pie, instead of their being able to collude with one
another to make the pie bigger at the expense of the taxpayer.
Because states do not have the power to print money, state
budgets can be limited by limiting total taxes that may be im-
posed, and that is the method that has been used in most of the
state amendments that have been adopted or proposed. The
federal government can print money, so limiting taxes is not an
effective method. That is why our amendment is stated in terms
of limiting total spending by the federal government, however
financed.
The limits—on either taxes or spending—are mostly specified
in terms of the total income of the state or nation in such a way
that if spending equaled the limit, government spending would
remain constant as a fraction of income. That would halt the
trend toward ever bigger government, not reverse it. However,
the limits would encourage a reversal because, in most cases, if
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FREE TO CHOOSE: A Personal Statement
spending did not equal the limit in any year, that would lower
the limits applicable to future years. In addition, the proposed
federal amendment requires a reduction in the percentage if in-
flation exceeds 3 percent a year.
OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS
A gradual reduction in the fraction of our income that govern-
ment spends would be a major contribution to a freer and stronger
society. But it would be only one step toward that objective.
Many of the most damaging kinds of government controls over
our lives do not involve much government spending: for ex-
ample, tariffs, price and wage controls, licensure of occupations,
regulation of industry, consumer legislation.
With respect to these, too, the most promising approach is
through general rules that limit government power. As yet, the
designing of appropriate rules of this kind has received little at-
tention. Before any rules can be taken seriously, they need the
kind of thorough examination by people with different interests
and knowledge that the tax and spending limitation amendments
have received.
As a first step in this process, we sketch a few examples of the
kinds of amendments that appear to us desirable. We stress that
these are highly tentative, intended primarily to stimulate further
thought and further work in this largely unexplored area.
lnternational Trade
The Constitution now specifies, "No State shall, without the con-
sent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or
exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing
its inspection laws." An amendment could specify:
Congress shall not lay any imposts or duties on imports
or exports, except what may he absolutely necessary for exe-
cuting its inspection laws.
It is visionary to suppose that such an amendment could be
enacted now. However, achieving free trade through repealing
individual tariffs is, if anything, even more visionary. And the
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attack on all tariffs consolidates the interests we all have as con-
sumers to counter the special interest we each have as producers.
Wage and Price Controls
As one of us wrote some years ago, "If the U.S. ever suc-
cumbs to collectivism, to government control over every facet
of our lives, it will not be because the socialists win any argu-
ments. It will be through the indirect route of wage and price
controls."
5
Prices, as we noted in Chapter 1, transmit informa-
tion—which Walter Wriston has quite properly translated by
describing prices as a form of speech. And prices determined in
a free market are a form of free speech. We need here the exact
counterpart of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of
sellers of goods or labor to price their products or services.
Occupational Licensure
Few things have a greater effect on our lives than the occupa-
tions we may follow. Widening freedom to choose in this area
requires limiting the power of states. The counterpart here in our
Constitution is either the provisions in its text which prohibit
certain actions by states or the Fourteenth Amendment. One
suggestion:
No State shall make or impose any law which shall
abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to follow
any occupation or profession of his choice.
A Portmanteau Free Trade Amendment
The three preceding amendments could all be replaced by a
single amendment patterned after the Second Amendment to our
Constitution (which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms) :
The right of the people to buy and sell legitimate goods
and services at mutually acceptable terms shall not be in-
fringed by Congress or any of the States.
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