Business, Politics, Government

Strange bedfellows, indeed!

Corporations gaining more clout as “persons” with First Amendment rights! A slate of candidates for mayor of New Orleans boasting that they’ll clean up government, run the city like a business, and making pie crust promises (easily made, easily broken) that I’ve heard repeated every four years for most of my adult life! Elected officials and community “leaders” falling like dominoes!

It worries me that people seem to have forgotten their high school civics! Every time I hear someone argue that government should/could be run like a business – or that business management experience is a necessary credential for public office, I cringe. I don’t doubt that there are transferrable skills, but government is radically different from business – in structure, operations, and purpose. They don’t share the same mission!

The structure of our government – with separate and distinctly different branches – was designed for the very purpose of preventing any one individual or group from amassing such power as to usurp the power of the citizens. The legislative branch writes and enacts laws, approves/adopts budgets, and subsequently approves spending. The executive branch sets policy, initiates programs, proposes spending, and administers the daily operations. And, the judicial branch is responsible for administering (oft-times interpreting) the law and resolving legal conflicts.

So, here’s the problem with the notion of running government like you run a business. There are limitations imposed, presumably to protect the public trust, that dictate how the CEO (i.e., the Mayor) can conduct city “business.” For example, government is bound by public bid laws, legislative oversight, and civil service regulations. The simple act of purchasing office supplies or equipment is no longer so simple. The Mayor can’t tell his secretary to run to Office Depot because they’re having a sale! True, there is waste and inefficiency, but "cleaning house" is hard because civil servants are protected from the vagaries of politics (like teachers who earn tenure) and can’t be fired without cause (serious cause).

And that division-of-power thing between the executive and legislative branches means that the City Council members are not under the Mayor’s authority – they don’t work for the Mayor! They are not his minions! They are the counter-balance to the power of the Mayor’s office. The Council sets policy through the enactment of laws, subject to charter, federal and state constitutional restrictions. The Council approves the operating and capital budgets for the City, working from the recommendations of the mayor; and they continually monitor revenues and expenditures for local government operations (i.e., they monitor the administration's spending).

What about the pie-crust promises to lower taxes and “fix” our public schools? Well, the Mayor doesn’t have much authority to do anything about either of these issues. Property tax assessments are the distinct responsibility of another elected official – the Assessor. Although, in preparing annual budget proposals, the Mayor may recommend rolling back the millage, or suggest that the City doesn’t need to collect the full millage, such action must be “blessed” by the Board of Liquidation and the City Council. Likewise, the public school system is governed by a separate (elected) body, the School Board, that derives its power and authority from the State, not the Mayor! And the Recovery School District is even further from the Mayor’s dominion!

I guess my final thought on this is that our elected officials – the Mayor, the Council, the Assessor(s), the Judges – all of them – are making a choice to be public servants when they run for office. I'd like them to have at least an inkling of what that means and how it's done! They should hold our interests and needs – as citizens, natural persons – in their sights. (When I speak of “persons” that does not include corporations – that are creatures of the state, recognized as “entities” for purposes of taxation, contracts, and property ownership.) Their personal missions should be compatible with the big picture of why government exists: “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility. . . promote the general Welfare, etc.” The purpose of government is not to increase profits for the moneyed few; rather our representatives in government – our agents – should strive, ALWAYS, to be good stewards.

It’s ironic, I think, that the politicians who are in trouble with the law got in this position because of their “business” dealings!!!!

"Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people."

- Henry Clay

"The object of government is the welfare of the people."

- Theodore Roosevelt