The Way Politicians Do "Business".

We often hear a political candidate boast of his business experience as if running a business and serving in a political office had some commonality. If you examine how a business operates and how the government operates you immediately find there are significant differences that are not readily interchangeable.

For instance a business must operate at a profit to survive. A government doesn´t operate at a profit for if it did there would be recognition that the government we are paying for is profiting on our taxes being used as capital. Therefore the government talks of "balancing the budget" which means they are working to "break even" which of course they seldom do. The government has no measuring stick to determine if it is being successful as is measured by profit so it merely claims it is providing a valuable service ( no matter what it is ) and this is as far as the bottom line is exposed. Now the proper function of government , i.e. the protection of individual rights , can be measured by a reduction in the rate of crime, the lack of invasions and the number of court cases reconciled. Of course the costs associated with these results can be quantified. Outside of the proper functions of government just enumerated all else in the economic realm fails to meet the test.

Lets take a look at Amtrak. The government is losing money every year and is providing a service that some can benefit from but all must pay for. This is not how business works. The private passenger trains that operate charge higher rates , provide much better service and those who use these railroads pay for the service. This is a shining example of how business contrasts with government provided services that are not universal such as individual protection from the initiation of force.

Politicians operate under the premise of reelection. If there are enough perceived voters to justify a stance the politician will support them. In the case of Amtrak there is obviously not enough traffic to continue at the current rates without a subsidy. A subsidy is nothing more than a government payment extracted from the tax payers ( or supported by deficit spending ) to make up for the economic viability of a given good or service. Consequently the trains continue to run by begging Congress for money each year and the Members of Congress comply pushed by the unwillingness to give up on a government program and some vocal constituents that want the service but do not want to pay for it out of only their pockets. Farmers use this approach to keep their subsidies in place. Both Amtrak and the farmers cry need and want the government to redistribute funds in their direction. The political favorites get the spoils and the overall population pays for it. Since some other pet payments may be obtained by others the game goes on until the deficit spending turns into runaway inflation and then all lose.

Another hallmark of how politicians do "business" is the bribery and corruption that is part of meddling in economic endeavors. If you cannot compete because of government restrictions , such as not being able to process meat without having the expensive equipment the government requires that only a high volume established profitable meat processing facility could afford, then you do not enter the business. Less meat processing means less meat in the same way and for the same reasons less refineries means less gasoline. Do you see any government established refineries or meat processing facilities in leu of the excluded competition? In the name of the government´s decree of what must be done to provide safe meat or gasoline processed with the "proper" emission standards there creeps into the economy a shortage of meat and gasoline because the potential competition has been thwarted by decree. Those who continue to operate have a political exception that gives them a special privilege much like the exception for smoking in casinos in Iowa. In this case the concern for employees and customers was overridden by the impact casinos have on generating revenue for the state. Suddenly the concern with the health of the clientele and the employees could be overlooked as looking out for the general public was only important if it didn´t affect revenues. This is how politicians do their business. A business could offer smoking and non smoking facilities and some of the casinos do, but to allow other businesses to offer just smoking is taboo. There is a cigar shop in Iowa City that smells to high heaven but no one has to go in there and to exclude smoking from such a facility would be ridiculous. I don´t know if they are excluded or not but the point is the more the government restricts the less choices we have which means the less freedom we have which means the country that was defined as a free country since its inception is on the road to losing that distinction at the hands of the very people who,sworn to uphold the Constitution, think they can run the business of business with government thinking.

The politicians also think that money is no object meaning that if the need is great enough they can spend whether the funds will ever be available or not. A business man knows that bankruptcy is the endpoint of overspending. A politician doesn´t understand that the government can also go bankrupt which happens when there is not any source of revenue or borrowing or printing that will cover the debt that has been amassed. The United States is now in that predicament. The printing press is the payment of last resort and high inflation is the predictable result. Businesses only have the printing option if they engage in counterfeiting. Counterfeiting that is legal which is what our government is doing is still counterfeiting and the loss in the value of the dollar doesn´t care whether the government sanctions it or not. Worthless money is still worthless money. A businessperson could try to cover his financial condition by "cooking the books" and here the criminal activity of a crooked businessperson and the government mesh. The government is trying to hide the real inflation rate from the public by giving out figures that have been massaged to look safe even though they exclude the major components of inflation, food and fuel The truckers Washington can see through this bogus chicanery but the Congress is oblivious to their role in trying to fool the public.

If a person wants to deal in a way that requires a good reputation of a vendor and have a dependable supply of goods and services to choose from, then he will reject the way the politicians do "business". If he wants to have political buddies who will come and go, and flip their priorities with the popular notions of the masses then he will seek out the kind of people who will promise anything to anyone for a chance to rule. In the land of the free the approach that relies on the individual and personal responsibility is the approach that fits with the idea of freedom. The domination of the political landscape by ever encroaching regulation and taxation, redistribution of wealth, egalitarianism and criminalization of business activity is deteriorating the quality of life for millions of those facing the future. This from choosing to support and encourage politicians to do as they damn well please and spend as much as they want to. If there is not a voter crackdown on what the government can do to its citizenry then there will be a crackdown on the citizenry by an arrogant government that has forgotten why it was created and for what purpose. A voter who does not recognize this is not an informed voter.