WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) -- Congratulations! As of Saturday, June 29, you have worked long and hard enough to pay off your share of this year's government burden. You may now start working for yourself and your family.

June 29 is Cost of Government Day, the date of the calendar year, starting from Jan. 1, when Americans have earned enough in gross income to pay off the entire burden of government -- total federal, state, and local government spending plus the costs of regulation.

According to Americans for Tax Reform, the average American worker must labor 79 days to pay federal taxes, 37 days to pay state and local taxes, 38 days to pay for federal regulations, 23 days for state regulations, and one day to pay the federal deficit.

In other words, you labor nearly half the year to pay for government.

Your servitude is evident not only in the hours you spend laboring for government, but also in the moral freedom that you lose by sacrificing nearly half a year's pay to it.

For some families, the high cost of government means that both parents have to work for pay and leave their children in the care of others. For others, it means doing without education at preferred schools or living in homes that are too small.

For many, it means foregoing the necessities and comforts that lighten life's load, like a second car, a new computer, a home security system, or a family vacation and the precious time together that it would allow. These are not small sacrifices, nor are they merely practical. To provide the best for one's family is a moral responsibility.

As the high cost of government reduces the economic freedom to meet this responsibility, so it reduces moral freedom -- the freedom to do what one ought.

Full-time mom Susie Dutcher eloquently summed up the burden on working families in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee: "Taxes are far and away the biggest portion of our family budget. There are many things I would like to do with my husband's earnings, but ... you seem to believe you have the moral authority and the superior judgment to make those choices for us. I would love to put more dollars into our retirement account, for example, but I'm forced to put them into your Social Security trust fund, which I don't trust. I'd love to buy more books for Lincoln, Elizabeth, and Mary Margaret and put more money in their college fund, but you've already seen fit to use that money funding closed-captioning for the "Jerry Springer" show. I'd love to get ballet lessons for Elizabeth, but my money is tied up buying food stamps for the deceased. I'd love to give more money to support our church's missionary in Albania ... but instead I'm forced to fund fish farming ... and Social Security payments for escaped convicts. My husband and I would like for the most part to make our own choices concerning the fruit of our labor. But under threat of imprisonment, we defer to your choices."

By restricting Americans' moral and economic freedom via high taxes and a consuming morass of regulation, government causes them to become increasingly dependent upon itself.

From the cradle to the grave, government presumes to provide for citizens' needs and tell them what to do. Parents are told how long to keep their children in car seats and in school.

Family homes must be constructed according to building and zoning codes, their food labeled to inform them of how much of the government's recommended nutrients it provides.

Government now educates, or pretends to educate, students throughout their lifetimes, beginning with day care, on through state-sponsored primary and secondary schools, up until college and graduate school, for which it provides both subsidized schools and grants and loans.

Stepping between the generations, government funds retirement, teaching people to expect 20 or so years of leisure, and relieving families of the burden and blessing of caring for their own.

Lifelong dependency like this is morally dangerous. It removes the need to act responsibly, with an eye toward providing for oneself and one's family. It restricts choice, luring people to accept what the state provides for them, instead of determining what's best and then seeking it themselves. It elbows out the institutions such as family, church, and community closer to those truly in need and better able to provide care for them.

There is encouraging news. Cost of Government Day has actually moved backward for the second year in a row, meaning that Americans are laboring for the government fewer days than in the past.

It's time to face and reverse not only the economic burden of government but also the moral harm that it causes. Only when Americans reject the temptations of patronizing government will their load lighten.

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Leslie Carbone is the author of "Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform" (forthcoming).