Thursday, December 06, 2001

“I Will Make Government Run Like a Business!”

December 6, 2001.Soon this call of perennial foolishness will begin echoing through the pages of political campaigning. “I am a businessman - I know how to meet deadlines and payrolls, turn a profit, and I will make this government run like a business! Just elect me!” What’s wrong with this, anyway? Well, it is similar to flying an airplane like a tractor, making a mirror bounce like a football, or frying your orange juice for breakfast. Business has profit for its sole guide. Its only responsibility is to “stockholders” who want to make money, and if they don’t get maximum profit, they will “leave” and go somewhere else. They are mobile and critical; they have brokers and advisors - they can pull everything out and leave and go somewhere else in one day. They owe no allegiance to any company and put down no roots there. They are not stuck with its leader for two years or four years or six years. If the CEO is stupid, and selfish, then it will be only his own company that he will have left to wreck, everybody else will be long gone. Also, business action has to go to where the money is. Food stamps and Social Security will always be money losers (even though they are almost completely pass-through providers to local merchants and business). Services are provided not according to need but to ability to pay. It may have been true that the “Business of America is Business” but the business of government is people.

And then – there's this dirty little secret that nobody ever talks about, but everybody knows.That is that the entire concept of "profit" is a fiction. "Profit" doesn't really exist, it's just an understanding that business will only cover SOME of the costs of running their business. What about the other costs of running a business? Who covers those? We  know who does.  It's the government.  It HAS to step in when things get bad enough.