Whether or not one signs on to Mr. Friedman's thesis--that the federal deficit is a

disastrous legacy of the Reagan Administration--this is a lucid and engaging discussion

of a constellation of important questions. BF: "If this [the 1986 revision of the tax code]

was the big reconsideration of our tax system for fifty years, which is what it was billed

as being, we should have used that opportunity to get away from an income tax towards a

consumption tax." ... WFB: "It seems to me that if the government goes to you and

asks you for $100 from your savings, and then ten years later gives you $110, but [it] can

only buy you what $45 used to buy you, somebody has swindled somebody without

having to answer to the SEC ..." BF: "I see it not as a matter of a swindle, but a risk."