money = power
Therefore
less money to fedgov = less power to fedgov
Therefore
our duty to limit fedgov power = our duty to give fedgov as little money as possible.
Sorry I did not spell it out before. I wrongly assumed that it would have been obvious to anyone on FR.
Yes, that was a wrong assumption: for some people here, distrust of the government is tempered by knowledge of basic economics and use of logic. One should not assume that all people here are ignorant.
money = power This is obviously false. What may be true when appropriately qualified is "money -> power." But let's move on:
Therefore
less money to fedgov = less power to fedgov
This is correct, of course.
Therefore
our duty to limit fedgov power = our duty to give fedgov as little money as possible.
This is incorrect: the last implication (""therefore") is actually a leap of faith, a non sequitur (funny, isn't it: first, you falsely imputed it to my previous post and now commit it yourself without noticing it -- just tells you how unhelpful to reply to honest questions with a snide two-word remarks).
The premise is false: we have no "duty to limit fedgov power." The duty we have is not to let it grow beyond the desired limit. The distinction is important.
Please reread my earlier post regarding public goods. The view of "lesser is better" is a silly mistake one hears from a lot of libertarians and anarchists. It is not true that less is better, as the example with defense illustrates. And it is for that same reason that we have no wholesale duty to limit government's power.
Thus, if the considerable strength of our enemies requires a defense budget of $300B, say, you don't want to make the governmnet smaller than that. You want the government to be at least as big as $300B. Demanding a reduction below that level would be irresponsible to the point of being treasonous. Should the enemies weaken, howver, and necessitate the defense budget of only $100B, it would indeed be our duty to reduce the government and bring the budget to $100B. Less need not be better, and we have no duty you have annunciated.
The issue of government finance is not as trivial as you assume it to be, and wholesale "principles" such as "our duty to reduce the government" have never been advocated by the Founders.