Business and Politics are like Oil and Water...

[kentuck]

A letter in the NY Times describes it quite well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/opinion/lweb30romney.html?ref=opinion

<snip>
Re “For Romney & Company, Campaign Is All Business” (news article, Nov. 24):

Perhaps the campaign of Mitt Romney is emblematic of much that is wrong with our present political condition. Mr. Romney may have been a business manager par excellence, but the United States government has never been and should not now be thought of as a business.

While the goal of most businesses is the greatest monetary profit possible, the goal of good government is the welfare of its citizenry, and achieving that end often requires measures that would never be considered good business.

After big business and lax government brought the country — and the world — to its knees in 1929, where would we be if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had opted for a series of business-like measures to deal with the Great Depression? And would a business-oriented President Dwight D. Eisenhower have sent federal troops into Little Rock to take a firm stand on civil rights?

When I hear any candidate touting his or her business success as an invaluable qualification for office, I cannot help but envision someone who is eager to strip down government to its barest and most primitive form so that real business may grow unchecked and at the expense of the American people.

Gary Giardina
New York, Nov. 24, 2007