He was a rarity, an intellectually honest man in an intellectually dishonest age. What an ideal name for an auditorium dedicated to the promotion of human freedom. Your devotion to truth, like that of Hayek, has cast you as mavericks. It has put you at odds with the received opinions of the conventional left and right. What a hopeful time this is.
Socialism is finished.
The liberal welfare state is passe. And I'm more optimistic than I've ever dared to be that we are entering a new era of limited government. Congress is run by Americans who believe ordinary people can be trusted to spend their own money and make their own decisions. We will send power back from the hallowed halls of Congress to the more hallowed kitchen tables of America, where night after night families bow their heads in thanks and make decisions about education, charity, jobs, spending, debt, and personal behavior with a wisdom and a compassion that no agency head, no cabinet secretary, no member of Congress could ever match. Just today, we shook the foundations of Washington by doing something that hasn't been done for a quarter century.