On the day that Australia finally gets its government back, it is worth remembering some wisdom which Ronald Reagan imparted to us. Reagan understood that liberty and economic prosperity rested on giving as much freedom to ordinary people as possible, and getting government out of the way. He summed up this principle with the following statement:
“Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
It is worth considering the context in which Reagan made these remarks. They were made during his first inaugural address as President of the United States on January 20, 1981. America had endured a number years of weak leadership, economic stagnation, and foreign policy retreat in the wake of the Vietnam War. Reagan made a point of returning power to the people, wary of a “government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”
Thus, although Reagan’s one-liner makes for a great meme, it is also the focal point of a passage in His speech where he sums up the problem, identifies the source of the problem, and proposes a solution to the problem:
“The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
“From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.”
The full text, and an excellent summary provided by the Heritage Foundation, can be read here.
It’s your XYZ.
Photo by Opus Penguin 