Acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen recently noted that Hong Kong's population is ageing, and asked couples to have three children each to help redress this imbalance. What Mr Tsang does not realise is that many middle-class couples already support at least three children through the extra taxes taken from them, including expanding expenditure on state welfare, and state-funded medicine and education.
This is money they could spend on their own families. Indeed, despite a forecast budget surplus, it is unrestrained government spending that is causing a cyclical deficit, which pundits claim will drain our reserves and put us into the poorhouse.
Simply put, there are not enough working people to prolong the city's welfare state, and Mr Tsang's solution would offer benefits to middle-class families today so that their children can be the indentured taxpayers of tomorrow.
Fifteen years ago, we never had this problem. According to government figures, spending has rocketed 340 per cent from 1989-90 to 2003-04. Education funding is up 430 per cent, health 480 per cent, and social welfare has risen a whopping 790 per cent. This is an open-ended commitment, which will never stop unless changes are made.
There has been a deafening silence from the accounting profession about curbing this increase. Instead of defending responsible government, its leaders regularly talk up a sales tax that will additionally burden the middle class. Instead of requesting more children or more tax, the government should be advocating personal responsibility - not parasitism - as one of Hong Kong's core virtues. This means that people should only have the children they can afford, and should pay for education themselves. At the same time, there should be a cap on government spending on education, social welfare and health each year. This should be reduced to zero over the medium term.
Additionally, since education is the parents' responsibility, there should be a move towards education vouchers. In this way, any school subsidies are given directly to parents so that they get used to paying directly for their children's schooling. The home-schooling ban should also be lifted.