These are largely uncontroversial. Also uncontroversial and on the way to final passage is an effort to enact Covid-related liability protections for businesses, churches, and other organizations.

Surely, in the midst of a year-long emergency, this is not all the legislature can come up with to help.

Thankfully, there appears to be an appetite to do more to help the people of Alabama from some legislators. Here are some additional areas where they should put that impulse to good use.

First, there is the issue of restoring the balance of power in cases of prolonged emergencies such as what we are experiencing with Covid-19. Currently, the legislative body as a whole does not have to approve of any emergency declaration.  This should be changed so that any emergency order by the governor lasting over 30 days must be approved by the legislature as a whole. Senator Whatley’s bill (SB97) would make this adjustment. That mess about the legislature not being able to call itself into a special session? Representative Nordgren has a bill (HB21) that would fix that, too.

Second, legislators should make permanent two other executive actions from Governor Ivey by eliminating the certificate of need process (which has been deemed by the federal government as a failed initiative) and by allowing occupational licenses from other states to be accepted within our borders.

Third, the legislature must address the problems with our state’s education system in a new way (i.e. not throwing more money at the system). The Alabama Accountability Act should be expanded, education savings accounts should be made available for all students, and “pods,” in which families join together to form schooling communities, should be formally protected from government interference.

Fourth is legislation that is being carried by Representative Danny Garrett and Senator Dan Roberts that removes impediments to business growth and modernizes the code of Alabama into one more attractive to business and investment.

While we’re making suggestions, we also have to highlight the fact that, in the midst of the pandemic, Alabama has yet to use any of its rainy day funds ($708 million between the two budgets for 2021). In fact, we hear on a seemingly regular basis that the budgets are doing well. For the state government, it seems like this rainy day has been more of a misty morning.

Not so for the private sector. For them, the government’s response to the pandemic has been a hurricane. And just like in a hurricane, businesses across our state had to shutter windows and close their doors. At least in a hurricane closing up and hunkering down is voluntary. This was different. This was compulsory. Even after the lockdowns were lifted, some, especially those businesses in the hospitality and restaurant industries, had gone under for good.

Those businesses which have managed to stay afloat? They face growing challenges every day.

In Montgomery, though, things are fine. Just as always. In fact, they’re flush with cash and looking to expand the budgets.

To rectify this, the legislature should, if not permanently, temporarily lift taxes that disproportionately affect those most vulnerable to the economic downturn. The grocery tax is one such example. Any shortfall that occurs to the state budgets should result in cost savings measures or, after all efforts to cut back on spending have been made, the use of rainy day funds.

Some of these reforms are admittedly major changes. But government as usual isn’t looked upon favorably by constituents anymore.  Though Joe Biden is president, Donald Trump won Alabama easily because he promised to end government as usual and put Americans first. Since the dynamics in Washington have changed, it is essential for our state legislature to protect our state from the negative effects of misguided federal policy. It would be wise for the Alabama Legislature, therefore, to pursue these changes. Both for the state’s overall wellbeing and because Alabamians expect nothing less.

Caleb Crosby, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration, including a stint at the White House, has been president of Alabama Policy Institute since 2013. API is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to free markets, limited government, and strong families, learn more at www.alabamapolicy.org.

The word “conservative” gets tossed around freely these days and it is difficult to land on a definition that everyone can agree on.

Often times it is used in terms of culture.

How you dress or get your hair cut, whether you have a beard or are clean-shaven. If you take your coffee black or order a latte, drive a truck or Prius.

Other times it is used to define a candidate in a race with criteria that has been set by the political elite.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, whether we know it quickly or in a month, we are going to have to come together as conservatives and agree that government is not the answer. Government cannot and should not be the default solution for the problems we face.

Having spent eight years in Washington, D.C. working at the highest levels of government, I can assure you that government is not the answer.

So, what is the answer? What does conservative mean? Faith and church, family, civic institutions and community are the answer. Personal responsibility is the answer.

Men and women, families, working to make this state, our nation and our world a better place through hard work and ingenuity is the answer, not government dictates.

That’s conservatism.

I often hear the refrain that government should mandate certain things or make laws because people cannot be trusted with that responsibility, nor can individuals be trusted to do the “right thing.”

Yet, the role of government in this nation was intentionally limited from the start.

With this view of conservatism, then, what we should expect from our elected officials is less, not more.

When we, as individuals and communities, ignore the problems of society and leave them to the government to address, we take the responsibility to offer solutions off of ourselves. At best, that’s lazy, and at worst it’s an act of cowardice.

When we constantly defer to the government, as if it is the great healer of all that ails us, society is then missing out on the individual and communal ingenuity that is necessary to tackle all forms of challenges. As a result, we are left with a one-size-fits-all approach forced on us by government bureaucrats and out of touch, and often disingenuous, politicians.

Government solutions will always be centralized, monolithic, and conforming. We need decentralized, diverse and dynamic solutions that can only come outside of the public option.

I was shaped by this truth at an early age when my mom started the first Save-A-Life center in Jackson, Alabama, the small town that I grew up in. She saw a need and stepped up. And I saw firsthand what happens when neighbors help neighbors by offering a local solution to a local problem.

We live in a broken world with broken people. So allowing free people to order society and choose outcomes for themselves will always be risky, and it is not without faults.

But we can’t medicate ourselves with government.

As a society we have lost our sense that life is full of risk and reward.

The temporary risk is worth the growth that comes from the process and is realized in the final result. You can’t have the ups without the downs.

This is where API is headed and where we hope to help lead our state toward. To help and hold accountable our government. To not have government do more, but less. To call all Alabamians to expect less from their government, while giving more of themselves to tackle the challenges that face our state and country.

We must be willing to take the risk that comes with self-reliance and limited government, as that is where the beauty and solutions will be found.

Caleb Crosby, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration, including a stint at the White House, has been president of Alabama Policy Institute since 2013. API is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to free markets, limited government, and strong families, learn more at www.alabamapolicy.org.

It’s not hard to see why people might think so, though. It seems that over time, culture has disconnected the relationships between freedom, safety and responsibility.

Freedom and safety are inversely related. The more choices you have the more likely you are to be impacted by the consequences of those choices. The consequences could be abundantly good or disastrously bad, but the freedom to make those choices is key.

Responsibility for consequences has to reside with the one making the choice.

If you have the freedom to make a financial, health or spiritual choice, you must be responsible and accountable for the consequences of those choices. You can’t make bad health choices and expect to be shielded from the impact of those decisions. Likewise, if you are an entrepreneur and your business does well, you should be the primary benefactor from that success.

Unfortunately, culture has ceded some freedoms in the quest for safety/security.

The government has become the one making more choices for us and now bears more of the responsibility for them. Think of the explosion in bureaucratic regulations over the last 50 plus years and the resultant need for more and more administrators to keep us in compliance by limiting our choices so we don’t “hurt ourselves.” With time this mindset becomes presumptive: “if the government still allows this choice, it must not be harmful, right?”

This is not how we should live.

The government does not and should not have the primary responsibility for your health. And that is a good thing. The more responsibility for our well-being that we sacrifice to the government, the less free we, the people, become.

And for what? At best, the illusion of safety?

The government does not infringe on our right to eat a dozen donuts every day. This is a freedom we have.

Soon enough, whether it is in two weeks or the month after next, the government will return our right to eat out at restaurants, go to the movies, and congregate in larger numbers again.

Allowing these things is not irresponsible.

In fact, the main duty of our government is to protect these fundamental rights.

The very fact we are depending on the government to “return” our rights is problematic. The government does not give us our rights, it only protects them; the government cannot “take” or “give back” that which doesn’t belong to it.

Governor Kemp and others are not forcing businesses to open and accept customers just as they do not force people to eat twelve Krispy Kremes. What the government of Georgia is saying, and what Governor Ivey is saying as well, although measured, is that the burden of responsibility should be back on the people where it belongs.

So, when our health and that of our family and friends is chiefly our responsibility again, how should we act? Should we do everything the government says is legal?

Absolutely not.

We must take our freedoms and actually be responsible with them.

Look at the data and infection rates in your county and city and determine what’s best for you. Maybe hold off on going to the gym for a bit? If you’re a small business owner, find creative ways to encourage social distancing in your store. If you’re a pastor, consider ways to start in smaller groups before congregating together fully as new cases continue to fall. In other circumstances, if you’ve had COVID-19 and recovered, for example, this could be an opportunity to help stimulate the economy by getting back to work or by serving those in the community who are most vulnerable.

America is built on the idea that individuals, not the government, are best suited to determine which freedoms they should exercise and how, and in when to be cautious with those freedoms.

The truth is, regardless of what the government says, it is still up to us to make our own decisions of what is best for us, our families, and our communities as we look toward getting back to normal.

And we know that day is coming.

Things will be, in some fashion or another, normal again.

There is a lot at stake here. Thomas Jefferson may have said it best when he said, “We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self-government.”

In that vein we must remember that during this interim it is our responsibility, not the government’s, to use our freedom in a way that is responsible and furthers the continued success of our state and nation.

Caleb Crosby, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration, including a stint at the White House, has been president of Alabama Policy Institute since 2013. API is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to free markets, limited government, and strong families, learn more at www.alabamapolicy.org.