Free To Choose: a personal Statement

parties stated in dollars, and all dollar sums contained in
federal laws, shall be adjusted annually to allow for the
change in the general level of prices (luring the prior year.
Like the monetary amendment, this, too, is difficult to draft
precisely because of its technical character. Congress would have
to specify precise procedures, including what index number should
be used to approximate "the general level of prices." But it states
the fundamental principle.
This is hardly an exhaustive list—we still have three to go to
match the ten amendments in the original Bill of Rights. And the
suggested wording needs the scrutiny of experts in each area as
well as constitutional legal experts. But we trust that these
proposals at least indicate the promise of a constitutional
approach.
CONCLUSION
The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom work-
ing together came to their greatest fruition in the United States.
Those ideas are still very much with us. We are all of us imbued
with them. They are part of the very fabric of our being. But we
have been straying from them. We have been forgetting the basic
truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentra-
tion of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else.
We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, pro-
vided it is for good purposes.
Fortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the
dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that
good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on
the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance

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with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential
of a great society.
Fortunately, also, we are as a people still free to choose which
way we should go—whether to continue along the road we have
been following to ever bigger government, or to call a halt and
change direction.

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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
SOCIALIST PLATFORM OF 1928
Herewith the economic planks of the Socialist party platform of
1928, along with an indication in parentheses of how these planks have
fared. The list that follows includes every economic plank, but not the
full language of each.
1. "Nationalization of our natural resources, beginning with the coal
mines and water sites, particularly at Boulder Dam and Muscle Shoals."
(Boulder Dam, renamed Hoover Dam, and Muscle Shoals are now both
federal government projects.)
2. "A publicly owned giant power system under which the federal
government shall cooperate with the states and municipalities in the
distribution of electrical energy to the people at cost." (Tennessee Val-
ley Authority.)
3. "National ownership and democratic management of railroads
and other means of transportation and communication." (Railroad pas-
senger service is completely nationalized through Amtrak. Some freight
service is nationalized through Conrail. The FCC controls communica-
tions by telephone, telegraph, radio, and television.)
4. "An adequate national program for flood control, flood relief,
reforestation, irrigation, and reclamation." (Government expenditures
for these purposes are currently in the many billions of dollars.)
5. "Immediate governmental relief of the unemployed by the exten-
sion of all public works and a program of long range planning of public
works . . ." (In the 1930s, WPA and PWA were a direct counterpart;
now, a wide variety of other programs are.) "All persons thus em-
ployed to be engaged at hours and wages fixed by bona-fide labor
unions." (The Davis-Bacon and Walsh-Healey Acts require contractors
with government contracts to pay "prevailing wages," generally inter-
preted as highest union wages.)
6. "Loans to states and municipalities without interest for the pur-
pose of carrying on public works and the taking of such other measures
as will lessen widespread misery." (Federal grants in aid to states and
local municipalities currently total tens of billions of dollars a year.)
7. "A system of unemployment insurance." (Part of Social Security
system.)
8. "The nation-wide extension of public employment agencies in
cooperation with city federations of labor." (U.S. Employment Service
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and affiliated state employment services administer a network of about
2,500 local employment offices.)
9. "A system of health and accident insurance and of old age pen-
sions as well as unemployment insurance." (Part of Social Security
system.)
10. "Shortening the workday
"
and "Securing to every worker a rest
period of no less than two days in each week." (Legislated by wages
and hours laws that require overtime for more than forty hours of work
per week.)
11. "Enacting of an adequate federal anti—child labor amendment."
( Not achieved as amendment, but essence incorporated in various legis-
lative acts.)
12. "Abolition of the brutal exploitation of convicts under the con-
tract system and substitution of a cooperative organization of industries
in penitentiaries and workshops for the benefit of convicts and their
dependents." (Partly achieved, partly not.)
13. "Increase of taxation on high income levels, of corporation
taxes and inheritance taxes, the proceeds to be used for old age pen-
sions and other forms of social insurance.
"
(In 1928, highest personal
income tax rate, 25 percent; in 1978, 70 percent; in 1928, corporate
tax rate, 12 percent; in 1978, 48 percent; in 1928, top federal estate
tax rate, 20 percent; in 1978, 70 percent.)
14. "Appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all
land held for speculation." (Not achieved in this form, but property
taxes have risen drastically.)

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APPENDIX B
January 30, 1979
Washington, D.C.
A PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
TO LIMIT FEDERAL SPENDING
Prepared by the Federal Amendment Drafting Committee
W. C. Stubblebine, Chairman
Convened by The National Tax Limitation Committee
Wm. F. Rickenbacker, Chairman; Lewis K. Uhler, President
Section 1. To protect the people against excessive governmental
burdens and to promote sound fiscal and monetary policies, total out-
lays of the Government of the United States shall be limited.
(a) Total outlays in any fiscal year shall not increase by a percent-
age greater than the percentage increase in nominal gross national
product in the last calendar year ending prior to the beginning of said
fiscal year. Total outlays shall include budget and off-budget outlays,
and exclude redemptions of the public debt and emergency outlays.
(b) If inflation for the last calendar year ending prior to the begin-
ning of any fiscal year is more than three per cent, the permissible
percentage increase in total outlays for that fiscal year shall be reduced
by one-fourth of the excess of inflation over three per cent. Inflation
shall be measured by the difference between the percentage increase in
nominal gross national product and the percentage increase in real gross
national product.
Section 2. When, for any fiscal year, total revenues received by the
Government of the United States exceed total outlays, the surplus shall
be used to reduce the public debt of the United States until such debt
is eliminated.
Section 3. Following declaration of an emergency by the President,
Congress may authorize, by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, a speci-
fied amount of emergency outlays in excess of the limit for the current
fiscal year.
Section 4. The limit on total outlays may be changed by a specified
amount by a three-fourths vote of both Houses of Congress when
approved by the Legislatures of a majority of the several States. The
change shall become effective for the fiscal year following approval.
Section 5. For each of the first six fiscal years after ratification of this
article, total grants to States and local governments shall not be a
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smaller fraction of total outlays than in the three fiscal years prior to
the ratification of this article. Thereafter, if grants are less than that
fraction of total outlays, the limit on total outlays shall be decreased
by an equivalent amount.
Section 6. The Government of the United States shall not require,
directly or indirectly, that States or local governments engage in addi-
tional or expanded activities without compensation equal to the neces-
sary additional costs.
Section 7. This article may be enforced by one or more members of the
Congress in an action brought in the United States District Court for
the District of Columbia, and by no other persons. The action shall
name as defendant the Treasurer of the United States, who shall have
authority over outlays by any unit or agency of the Government of the
United States when required by a court order enforcing the provisions
of this article. The order of the court shall not specify the particular
outlays to be made or reduced. Changes in outlays necessary to comply
with the order of the court shall be made no later than the end of the
third full fiscal year following the court order.

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NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). (All page references are
to the edition edited by Edwin Cannan, 5th ed. (London: Methuen &
Co., Ltd., 1930).