According to the Adam Smith institute (and numerous other pages):
Milton Friedman used to say that nothing was so permanent as a temporary government programme.
Did he actually say this? And if so, was he the origin for this quip?
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JonathanReez
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Related: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/63851/was-there-something-in-lord-palmerstons-career-that-made-him-associated-with-tem – JonathanReez May 07 '21 at 20:52
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2DV because it's not apparent why you think Friedman *didn't* say this. Knowing his work in general and his (libertarian) [political stance](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Milton_Friedman&oldid=1021697630#Libertarianism_and_the_Republican_Party) in general it's entirely plausible. – Fizz May 08 '21 at 00:30
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1@Fizz fancy catchphrases are often misattributed to famous people, i.e. see the Albert Einstein tag. – JonathanReez May 08 '21 at 01:28
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1@Fizz since when does this SE require a reason for not knowing something? Most (maybe all) questions I ask here I don't think the opposite is true of the claim I'm asking about, I'm just not sure, and want help finding valid evidence to know one way or another – TCooper May 14 '21 at 00:12
2 Answers
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This appears to be true
Tyranny of the Status Quo, by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman, 1984, Pg. 115:
Each recession has produced government spending programs supposedly as a temporary device to create jobs. But nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. Those programs have typically moved into high gear only after the economy was on the road to recovery. In the process, they have established an interested constituency that has lobbied for their continuation, thereby contributing to the upward trend in government spending.
JonathanReez
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Joe W
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Thanks, updated your answer with the full quote. Though I'm still interested in knowing whether or not Friedman invented this quote or took it from somewhere else. – JonathanReez May 07 '21 at 16:46
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@JonathanReez I think it could be a bit hard to prove or disprove that someone said it before he did or not. – Joe W May 07 '21 at 17:20
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@JonathanReez: unless a source claims Friedman actually came up with this idea (before anyone else), investigating nearly similar ones is [OT here](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/864/faq-must-all-questions-be-notable). Your own questions regarding priority might be suitable to ask on economics SE or politics SE. – Fizz May 08 '21 at 01:43
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@Fizz that phrase is quite notable and most sources attribute it to Friedman, so I don't understand the concern here? – JonathanReez May 08 '21 at 02:15
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@JonathanReez: They attribute it to him because, as this answer demonstrates, he actually did write it down at some point. – Kevin May 08 '21 at 03:16
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@JoeW correctly pointed out that Milton Friedman did use that phrase. However he wasn't the first to use it. According to Google's book search, the oldest example that I could find is from the "Royal United Service Institution Journal" from 1888:
I fear they will verify Lord Palmerston's saying, that nothing is so permanent as a temporary appointment, not improbably our grand-children, visiting the Cape on pleasure or on business, will see this astounding, this everlasting memento, of our foresight.
This was written in the context of "temporarily" placing muzzle-loaded guns instead of breech-loaded guns at Naval Base Simon's Town in South Africa. It was attributed to Lord Palmerston but I can't find further proof so its likely to be apocryphal, given that this journal was published more than 20 years after his death.
Coincidentally, another journal from 1888 contains an early example of a complaint over a "temporary" government tax:
We see how frequently the irony of events has upset the most promising schemes of economy, how the income tax, originally considered a temporary war tax, has, since the majority of voters do not pay it, become a permanent tax and also the varying fortunes of the new sinking fund.
The last part refers to the British sinking fund:
The fund received whatever surplus occurred in the national Budget each year. However, the problem was that the fund was rarely given any priority in Government strategy. The result of this was that the funds were often raided by the Treasury when they needed funds quickly.
JonathanReez
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2I guess the question is was he the first one to say exactly that or did others say something similar first? The quotes you mention seem to be similar but not an exact match. – Joe W May 07 '21 at 22:10
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Well if you want to know if something similar was said before I am guessing you can find other examples further back in history as well as I don't really think this was a new idea even a few hundred years ago. – Joe W May 08 '21 at 03:08
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@JoeW The quote in the question seems to be paraphrasing Friedman. So we don't have an exact phrase attributed to him, and it doesn't make sense to distinguish between exact wording and similar statements. – Barmar May 08 '21 at 18:23
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@Barmar While that may be true I think that raises the concern that it has been said many times before with different wording/meaning behind it and it is possible that he didn't get it from somewhere else. I think the concept that the government has a hard time of getting rid of temporary thing is much older than any of the quotes listed here. – Joe W May 08 '21 at 19:24
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1@JoeW Which is precisely what this answer shows. This is an idea that has been passed along for many years, and Friedman was simply applying it in a specific case. – Barmar May 08 '21 at 19:25
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I found some other sources claiming as a traditional French saying "Nothing is so permanent as the provisional", but they were newer than 1888. – Nate Eldredge May 13 '21 at 06:14