A Businessman for President?
31st August 2015
Unlike many economists, who would confine “revenues” to “user fees,” business people don’t care where the revenues come from. They are just as happy to count tax dollars and loans as revenues. On the other side of the equation, where economists count all costs, both internal and external, business people are perfectly happy to shift costs on to others and then only count the costs that they themselves (or their companies or government agencies) have to pay.
Thus, someone who promises to “run a government like a business” isn’t promising to end deficit spending or stop ridiculous projects whose costs are far greater than their benefits. They aren’t even promising to cut costs by doing such things as renegotiating union contracts or streamlining environmental regulations. After all, businesses see unions and regulations as just a “cost of doing business,” and so long as the costs apply to everyone, they actually benefit big businesses that can more easily absorb them than small ones and thus reduce competition.
Let us just keep that in mind.