The Fallacy of running a Government as a Business

President Trump promised to run the government as a business. The problem with that is that the purpose of a business is very different from the purpose of a government. While businesses may make something, or provide some service, the primary purpose of a business, in our capitalistic society, is to make money for its owners. Trump seems to think that he and his cabinet/cronies are the owners of the business of government so they are out to get all of the money they can out of this government. On the other hand, the purpose of our government, as defined in the US Constitution is “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. I don’t see anything there about making money for the president, the congress or the cabinet.

The major problem with running the government as a business is that in most businesses there is a relationship between income and expenditures. That is, an increase in expenditures is usually connected to some expected increase in income, either through R&D or through increased production capacity. The income of government is not as directly related to its expenditures. The expenditures are for general services which the government provides such as education, policing, sanitation etc. and increasing these expenditures is not related to any direct increase in government income. Ideally a government should run with a balanced budget, such that the income for any given period should cover the expenses for that period. Unfortunately that doesn’t always occur.

Ok, enough of my meaningless ranting for today. Does anyone want to comment about this?