{"id":1023,"date":"2017-03-28T16:26:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T21:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisa.rushworth.us\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2017-03-28T21:02:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T02:02:42","slug":"government-as-a-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/?p=1023","title":{"rendered":"Government as a Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re getting another attempt to remodel the government as a business. If I\u00a0had<\/em> to run the federal government like a business, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to run it like one of Trump’s businesses! But lets ignore\u00a0whose<\/em> business.<\/p>\n

The problem with the swat team Trump’s announced is that it seems to presuppose that the problem with government is a top-level management issue that could be sorted by sound business practices. What corporation has their top level leadership appointed by its customers? Or even its owners – sure, corporate boards are voted by shareholders … but not the C-level positions. Additionally, what business would almost guarantee multi-year positions to their high level leadership team? Regardless of performance?!<\/p>\n

There is something to be said for bringing private sector innovation into government operations — especially at a lower level. Match up individual functions of government agencies with\u00a0private sector businesses or even non-profits that have similar functionalities. Several government agencies have large logistical operations (FEMA, military)\u00a0that a logistics company could help.\u00a0Maybe Habitat for Humanity has ideas that would farther HUD’s goals. University teams\u00a0may have interesting input\u00a0too. And marketing — corporate experience would certainly be beneficial in\u00a0selling<\/em> legislation and initiatives.<\/p>\n

But the fundamental problem I have with the principal that government\u00a0should<\/em> run like a business is that few businesses are monopolies.\u00a0If you don’t like how a business operates, what values they support, the product they create … you shop around and select another one.<\/p>\n

There was a whole thing a year or two ago with a baker who didn’t want to make a cake for a homosexual couple’s wedding.\u00a0But as a customer, I can chose not to contract with a bigoted pastry chef for\u00a0my<\/em> events either. It is possible enough people don’t care and she remains in business. Or her choices mean her business goes under. Either way, you are not forced to support her beliefs because there are other bakeries.<\/p>\n

Government provides services that cannot be privatized – for reasons of efficiency, non-profitability, or sensibility (privatizing the\u00a0military security and prisons are a good counter-example of why government\u00a0should<\/em> provide these services). As such, I cannot just pick another military\u00a0if I think the federal one is engaged in too many offensive operations. I cannot select a new environmental protection agency if I think the federal one fails to actually protect the environment.<\/p>\n

If we’re going to operate the government like a monopoly (see: industries generally subject to a LOT of regulation), we are not just the customers! The government is a customer owned co-op. One that\u00a0operates in hundreds of different verticals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re getting another attempt to remodel the government as a business. If I\u00a0had to run the federal government like a business, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to run it like one of Trump’s businesses! But lets ignore\u00a0whose business. The problem with the swat team Trump’s announced is that it seems to presuppose that the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[150,26,24],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-government","tag-political-theory","tag-politics","tag-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}