9 Reasons Why Business People Are Terrible At Governing

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/07/28/9-reasons-why-business-people-are-terrible-at-governing/

A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me an email. The gist of it was that Walmart is a wildly successful company, so why don’t we hire them to run the government? Really? Walmart? Then I thought about it for a while. That email represented a very commonly held idea in this country, that a successful business is superior to government. We elect business people to office on the idea that they will run the government in a more cost effective manner than someone without business experience.

Despite years as a public servant, Mitt Romney is running for President on his business credentials, hoping Republican voters forget about his relatively liberal voting record. Herman Cain’s only claim to fame is as CEO of a pizza chain. George Bush touted business acumen, despite being a very bad business man. To many voters that didn’t matter. To them, it’s better to be a bad business man than a good politician.

It’s easy to see why this idea tempts so many. For 30 years, we’ve been told that government is bad. Grover Norquist (father of the Republican “No New Taxes” pledge) famously said that we should reduce government to the size where it can fit in a bathtub so it can be drowned. The idea attracted a lot of people, especially after being told that government is bloated and stealing our hard earned money.

Whenever we turn on the TV, we hear one thing about the government. It is broke. We have an outrageous deficit and a huge debt. Wouldn’t it make sense to hire elect someone who knows how to handle cash?

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