In the United States today, the average individual, whoever he is, works from January 1 to…late June to provide funds that the government controls. That is to say, government at one level or another, federal, state, or local – directly through spending and taxes, and indirectly through rules, regulations, and mandates – controls half the national income and can determine how that is spent. We’re 50 percent socialist. Now, is that half freedom or half slavery? Neither of those statements would be wrong: We’re partly free and partly enslaved. Milton Friedman
Nobel Prize-winning economist (1912-2006)