Book review: "Free to Choose"

My Conservative studies group met last night to discuss "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman.  If you are unfamiliar with this book, it was first published in 1980.  My first thought after we chose this book to read was "hmm..... how relevant can it be to the world as it is today?".  Well, guess what?  It showed me how little things have really changed in the decades since the book first hit the shelves!  An ever-growing government, the struggling economy, schools that are cranking out students who are ill-equipped to support themselves, and a populace that is clueless!  
Here are a couple of quotes to garner your interest:

"Experience shows that once government undertakes an activity, it is seldom terminated.  The activity may not live up to the expectation but that is more likely to lead to its expansion, to its being granted a larger budget, thaqn to its curtailment or abolition".

" A very different meaning of equality has emerged in the United States in recent decades - equality of outcome".

"... the Fed has given its heart not to controlling the quantity of money but to controlling interest rates, something that it does not have the power to do.  The result... wide swings in both money and interest rates."
" No federal legislator could conceivably even read, let alone analyze and study, all the laws on which he must vote".

That last quote really got to me... since one of our Congressmen said pretty much the same thing at the time Obamacare was being voted on!!

The Friedmans do have a couple of really good suggestions that I think are as valid in 2011 as they were in 1980:  A proposed Constitutional Amendment to limit Federal Spending, school vouchers, tax and spending limitations, and many more well thought-out ideas for returning us to a genuine Free-Market society.  I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to understand what has happened to our country, and to see the direction we are headed if we don't take action now to halt our downslide into total government control!  This book definitely needs to be required reading for all high school students!