My favorite economist, Thomas Sowell, would often quote Milton Friedman, saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The thing is, before Milton Friedman popularized this as a common economic term, Robert Heinlein used its more colloquial version, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” or “TANSTAAFL” as a central theme in his novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. But even before Heinlein, the term had been used in literature and everyday parlance since at least the 1930s. So, I guess it would be best described as a “meta-quote.” TANSTAAFL certainly applies when we’re talking about “school choice.” The great lure of school choice programs is the “free money,”…