Shouldn't limited govt work and mostly private sector work be a disadvantage?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nobody is saying that the Gov't can or should be run like a business completely. That is an exaggeration.


The arguement is that a businessman

1. Understands the impact of government policies on job creation because he deals with it directly. He has to pay the taxes when raised, comply with the new regulations and cope with the gov'ts failure to stop a country from dumping. He therefore can enact policies tailored to maxmising competativeness and job creation.

2. Understands the need and importance of balancing a check book and that money doesn't grow on trees. It is easy taxed, borrowed, or printed, each of which puts a cost on the private sector. He also understands the need for efficiency and getting the biggest bang for the buck. Thus he can pursue policies that spend money the most effectively and is thus able to reduce the deficit.

No one is saying that he will litterally govern as a CEO. He will govern as a President of the United States. But as a former CEO he has this experience in dealing with the gov't and it's economic polices first hand and is thus best able to create an environment for jobs and to balance the budget.

Conservatism has historically prefered outsiders or atleast people who can claim to be outsiders. Term Limits are much more popular amongst conservatives then liberals and this is why Governors are prefered to Senators and businessmen are prefered to government officials. This desire is what hampered McCain's 2000 bid. He got the moderates, but he could never unify a caolition of "outsiders" because he was a Senator, inspite of his record of what he did.

It is not surprising that a liberal wouldn't understand this, but that sentiment is only more demanding now then it was then. Because of actions that Bush took on immigration, bailouts and so forth that completely set the base aflame with anger at the establishment and Washington. Thus you had Romney's initial rise to the top in IA and NH in 2007, followed by the rise of Mike Huckabee.

President Obama was a Senator for as long as Romney was Governor. Before that, he was a backbencher in the Illinois state legislature.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think the disconnect here is that what you want with politics and politicians is essentially two-fold - you want them to implement your preferred policies. That is, you want them both to pursue the right policies and also be able to implement them.

The latter is a political skill and is why political experience matters. You know that someone like LBJ is able to get things done whereas an outsider (Jimmy Carter, for example) might often be unable to.

The first one is different. Here you might have reason to distrust career politicians. The very term suggests that such people don't share your values precisely because they don't really have any. And their lack of experience with how the world works outside of politics might make them to blind to the problems society faces.

That doesn't really speak well for Romney anyway though.

Running a business and running an economy is very different though. It's amazing how many people on the right seem unable to grasp this. Business success is about having business ideas and being good at management. Not about understanding the world or economics.

For one thing, I am pretty sure that Romney is just as smart in terms of "economics" as he is in "Business". I can't fathom he would do so well at Harvard Business School otherwise. Is there not significant overlap in the programs? I would imagine that one would struggle greatly had he not learned economics both before and during his studies there.

Second of all Romney is not just any business person. He is a former venture capitalist with experiences in many different companies. And you can dig deep and find ways in which he screwed them over or not. But at the end of the day, he did reorganized these companies for a purpose, however "unfair" one can characterize it. In the process, he experienced the effects of government policies directly. Experienced how it affected the decisions either directly or indirectly from actions or inactions of the government. That experience in conjunction with his previous experience as a Governor, and yes knowledge of economics in general, which I am pretty sure he has, is what makes him a good choice.

I would arge that an economics professor is just as ill suited, to run an economy. That you would seek someone with diverse experiences, is rather obvious. If Mittens was "just a business executive", you would have a point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nobody is saying that the Gov't can or should be run like a business completely. That is an exaggeration.

Proprietors, or at the least shareholders, own a business. Businesses (except perhaps unions if one considers them businesses) are not set up for the welfare of employees, taxing authorities, creditors, suppliers, or customers. Any good done for these entities is coincidence or a necessary deal with outsiders.

Are you serving any purpose by starting your reponses with the equivalent of a dicationary definition? All you do is piss people off by insulting their intelligence.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Job creation is not a primary concern of employers. If a corporation can increase productivity by reducing its staff it will, as many profitable companies have done even before the financial collapse. Note well that giant corporations frequently hire lobbyists to make such a claim... and of course control the politicians that the giant entity sponsored to electoral success through campaign contributions.

But avoid using the buzzword "competitiveness" when "profitability" is the reality. It may be good for a corporation that it gets outright subsidies, underpays and overworks workers, gets tax burdens shifted to everyone else, gets regulatory relief that might lead to some ecological  disaster or life-taking catastrophe for which the government pays, or even gets a war for profit or control of resources and markets. Any good that comes from capitalism is a byproduct of the profit motive even if the profit comes from meeting human needs and desires.

This is the same thing you said in the first part, only with a mixture of far left cynnicism and anti-business biases mixed in with it.

The hope would be, that one would abandon their personal parochial concerns and serve the interests of the people, once in office. Of course you are in a situation where the determination of whether that has happened or not is determined by one's political slant, chances are the assessments will differ. I am pretty sure your judgement on such matters is wholly adequate based on your long and emense record of fair and unbiased analysis on political matters up to this point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Government can create the money supply. If you try to do so you face a long prison term. A government can of course print money to the extent of private productivity without inflation. Business (except in banks through fractional reserves) cannot create money.

That is not to say that government needs to show economy and efficiency.

Did I not include the printing of money? Ah, yes I did, it appears. That has a limit, which you acknowlege in your post, beyond which there is a cost. It is not unlimited. Therefore there is a great case to be made that the government should set priorities and do what it wants to as efficiently as possible.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Don't be so sure. A CEO of a defense contractor has a powerful incentive to bleed the government on behalf of his good buddies at the defense contractor. Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), boss of a for-profit network of medical clinics before being elected Governor, has proved wildly unpopular in Florida. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan, another entrepreneur-turned-Governor, gets approvals far below average. The ability to turn on a dime from loyalty to stockholders or one's own gain to public service is not easy.  Harshness in administrating a for-profit entity that people can quit if they dislike (if one is an oil-field geologist and dislikes Exxon-Mobil one might get a chance at BP)... but a country? It is difficult to uproot oneself even from Syria today.  

I can hardly see an executive suite as anything other than a haven for pathological narcissists, if not high-functioning sociopaths. Corporate executives are hired to enforce the desires of elites who see working people as livestock at best and vermin at worst -- and serving those interests isn't for people of charity and decency.  Recall Enron Corporation as an extreme example... and then some of the predatory lenders and corrupt rating agencies that foisted an economic disaster that threatened the severity of the three-year meltdown that followed the Crash of 1929.

More bias it appears. Again if we were talking about a defense contractor, then one would only vote for them on the assumption that they abandon their personal gain for the sake of the country, as I discussed earlier.

Rick Scott is a horrible politician. Snyder has some potential and his polls seem to be slowly recovering. He isn't a politician by trade, either. Yes, they lack political skills and had to make tough policy choices that were hard for people to accept. Therefore, those with limited political skills will be in a worse position then say an adept politico like Cuomo, or even someone like Scott Walker or Tom Corbett.

The rest of this section of your post is just trash.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You are right about the desire of the Right for term limits. Term limits have their problems -- most obviously they work as much against a competent and effective legislator as opposed to an incompetent or even corrupt legislator. They ensure a more rapid turnover of politicians -- and give more power to unelected lobbyists responsible only to their paymasters. (Government by lobbyists is a novel form of dictatorship!) They force perhaps a revolving door between government, business, and pressure groups. They can also force politicians with strong aspirations for high office to run for offices for which they need more preparation to do well, which is not good for the political process. A four-term Congressional Representative is, ceteris paribus,  more likely to be a more effective Senator than a two-term Representative.  
 
 The line between legislating and governing isn't so clear as it may seem to you.  Mayors and Governors have become Senators, Representatives have become Governors, and city-councilmen have often become Mayors. Knowing what the People want and being able to achieve it within a legislature is a desirable trait in a mayor, Governor, or President.

I am not a supporter of term limits, never said I was. You once again read to much into something and posted a bunch of crap distracting from the core issues of the topic. I never created any line between legislating and governing. I was assessing the desire of conservatives for a Washington outsider. Since you mix your personal view with your analysis all the time, I am not surprised you assume others do so as well.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...Conservative interests -- like cheap labor and tough law enforcement -- can themselves contradict. Conservatives ordinarily want an abundant supply of cheap, dependent, expendable, but competent labor. Greater profits can be made by underpaying workers because they are in no position in which to say no (don't kid yourself -- that is one of the objectives of "Right-to-Work" legislation). But cheap labor is a hardship for those who have no alternative -- and low wages imply hardships to people (children) who have no culpability in the system.

Note well: in a democracy, everything -- including stewardship of the economy -- is a legitimate concern of the elected leadership. It is not enough to say that efficiency is everything; if that efficiency comes with cruelty then the objectives are suspect.  Workers have a right to concern themselves with issues of economic equity that some conservatives consider outside the realm of public debate and action. If Big Business could get away with it America would quickly revert to the norm of the Gilded Age for industrial workers -- kids in the workforce by age 10, 70 hours as the workweek, workers wrecked by 35 and dead by 40.

How did you get that out of an explanation as to why the GOP base hate Washington? More exaggerations of conservative positons, more personal bias, more paranoia, and thus more garbage.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We now get to judge him on his results, and what he was before he was President no longer matters except as description. It would not matter now if the President did as he does after having spent most of his life as a long-haul trucker. We legitimately judge politicians on their results.

The thread is suppose defend longterm incumbents and insiders. That section intially included Lincoln short government experience as well. I removed it to reduce the length. It wasn't meant to be a hit on Obama, but a defense of "alleged" outsiders.