BUSINESS versus GOVERNMENT

 A lot of people in this country believe that a successful business background is an excellent qualification for public office. That belief could not be further from the truth and I will tell you why business and government don’t mix...

First of all, the sole purpose of every business, no matter what product it produces or services it provides and no matter how large or small, is to make money for its owners. PERIOD. In fact, under certain circumstances, if a business doesn’t make money for its owners over an extended period of time it can no longer be considered a business for tax purposes. Government, on the other hand, has nothing to do with making money or even saving money. Its sole purpose at the local, state and federal levels is to use the tax dollars it receives from the people and businesses in its jurisdiction to serve the collective needs of the people and businesses that paid those taxes. In addition to these very different reasons for existing, business in a capitalist society is, by its very nature, competitive, while government in a democratic republic is, by its very nature, collaborative.

I am not opposed to competition. In fact, I love competition. I have been a very competitive amateur athlete most of my life and I can give you dozens of reasons why competition is good for individuals, businesses and the country, but that’s a topic for another day. The point here is that the majority doesn’t rule in a democratic republic. It points the government in a direction favored by the majority of citizens who cared enough to vote. The role of the minority in a democratic republic is not to block any movement in that direction. Government is not a competition. The role of the minority is to temper that movement so that it doesn’t ignore the wishes of or harm the citizens who did not vote for the majority. Remember, I just said the role of government is to serve the collective needs of the people and businesses that pay taxes. That means everybody, not just those who voted for the winners of the election. And serving the collective needs of the taxpayers requires deliberation, negotiation and, compromise, which is what collaboration is all about.

If the political left and political right could agree on anything these days my guess is they would agree that our government isn’t working. It is not serving the collective needs of the taxpayers. I believe, and I ask you to consider, that the reason government isn’t working is because the process by which we select our government leaders and representatives, the electoral process, has become so expensive that only the largest, and richest businesses in the county can afford to participate in that process; and they are demanding that the government leaders and representatives they paid to get elected operate under their competitive, win/lose business model. That is what is happening now and is why government is not working. The biggest, richest businesses in a variety of highly profitable industries (i.e. the military industrial complex, the oil industry, the aerospace industry, the banking industry, the insurance industry, the communications industry, Big Pharma, Big Ag.... feel free to add anyone I’ve left out) now own our government. It is no longer a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” Our government has become a tool these businesses are using to serve their sole purpose for existing, which is to make money for their owners

The solution to this problem is simple, but it is far from easy. We need to take business out of government the way our founders took religion out of government by separating church and state We do that by taking money out of the electoral process and demanding, using the power of our votes, that government go back to using the collaborative win/win model, which is how it was designed and intended to operate, and deliberate, negotiate and compromise in order to use our tax dollars in the best interest of our collective needs