Budget Cuts: Smaller Government, Bigger Personal Responsibility

Friend, if you have been following the news this week, you will know that there are major cuts coming to the Government budget. They will be spending less of your money.

This will inevitably mean that Government will do less.   

There has been a lot of panic about the loss of jobs – fair enough.  

However, amidst this, I want to share a silver lining with you: When the government runs out of your money, it is forced do less and so the Government’s responsibility and say over everyday life shrinks.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan said,

“We've gone astray from first principles. We've lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we've accomplished. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”

Tight government budgets over the past few years have made the size of Government smaller. Less cash means less silly projects and only the basics! 

Do you remember the saga with mouldy school lunches from December last year?!

There was a lot of noise, but no one really stopped to ask...why is the Government feeding our kids?

Where is our responsibility gone? 

Consider the moral panic about around banning social media for young people. Why is there no national discussion about the responsibility parents bear to safeguard their children? 

Just this week an MP in the house ridiculed those who suggest that parents should be responsible for their own children!  

Are we really yearning to co-parent with the state? 

One of the foundational hallmarks of a liberal and democratic society is personal responsibility. This is the idea is that I provide for myself, and my family, not the Government.  We must not look to the Government to do that which we can do ourselves.

A people reliant on the feeding hand of the Government are not free, they are chained in their dependence. The answer to this dependence is independence - to stand up and take responsibility where we can.

The Silver Lining

Yes, the government is running out of your money. This will hurt some in the short run. It will mean that an inflated economy and society held up by the unsustainable gas of Government borrowing is coming back to reality.

In this moment, an opportunity arises for each of us to either complain or do more. 

I suggest we take responsibility and do more; strengthen our families and communities, and build a freedom that is real, not borrowed from the Government.