New jobs numbers are out, and according to the latest figures, the federal workforce is now at its lowest level since 2014—down by roughly 271,000 jobs since President Trump took office.
A lot of us see that and instinctively think, “Great!”
And to be clear, that instinct isn’t wrong. Fewer federal employees does feel like a healthy sign.
Still, it’s important to keep the right perspective.
Charts like this, and the online reactions to them, are interesting to me because they expose how shallow most of our arguments have become.
See, the real problem has never really been how many people work for the federal government; the problem is what so many people have come to believe government is responsible for in the first place.
For decades, Washington has accumulated “responsibilities” the way a grandma’s attic accumulates boxes.
Each crisis adds another program. Each good intention adds another agency. Each “temporary” solution inevitably becomes permanent. And almost no one ever stops to ask the most important question of all:
Should the federal government even be doing this?
That question is absent from nearly every political debate your kids will hear. Instead, they’re taught to argue about management—about efficiency, staffing levels, and budgets—as if the central issue is whether Leviathan is being run well, rather than whether Leviathan should exist in its current form. Or at all.
This is the lesson we teach in The Tuttle Twins and the Leviathan Crisis.
It isn’t a book about partisan wins or losses, and it certainly doesn’t tell kids to root for one administration over another. Instead, it walks them through a much deeper idea—one that most adults never encounter until it’s far too late:
Big government doesn’t arrive all at once. It grows gradually, quietly, and often with the support of people who mean well.
And once it grows, it doesn’t actually need more employees to become more powerful. Rules, regulations, mandates, and spending can expand even while headcounts shrink. Power can centralize even as offices close.
That’s why a drop in federal employment can’t actually tell you whether a country is becoming more free or not.
If children are taught that every problem has a federal solution, they’ll grow up expecting someone else to run their lives, regardless of how many people are on the payroll. But if they’re taught to ask first-principle questions about power, responsibility, and agency, they develop something far more valuable than political opinions.
They develop discernment.
Leviathan Crisis helps kids see that government is not a parental figure, a savior, or an all-knowing referee. It is a tool that should only exist to protect the natural rights of the men and women who give it legitimacy. It must be constrained, questioned, and most importantly, understood, if liberty is going to survive at all.
Charts come and go, administrations change, and staffing levels rise and fall, but the ideas your children absorb now will shape how they interpret every headline for the rest of their lives.
And it’s on moms and dads to teach them the truth.
I’m glad to see federal employment numbers falling. It’s a great start. But there’s a lot of work to do if we’re going to raise a generation of kids who have the brains and the courage to keep pushing this monster back into its box.
I’m grateful to be able to spend my time creating resources that help parents like you in the important efforts you’re making.
It’s working.
— Connor
