Businessmen are NOT Good Governors!

You get what you ask for when you elect a businessman to a higher level of government than they deserve.

Rick Scott - Florida

ORLANDO, Fla. - With Gov. Rick Scott's approval rating sliding 7 points this month to a new personal low of 26%, Scott released his 2012-13 budget proposal, which would makes cuts to Medicaid, increases money to education, and gives more corporate hand outs to Florida businesses.

Rick Snyder - Michigan 

In the last few weeks of 2011, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) rounded out his concerted campaign against Michigan workers with a few final laws. In a prejudicial move against the LGBT community, Snyder signed a measure prohibiting all public employees from providing benefits for their unmarried partners. In considering his state’s 10.6 percent unemployment rate, Snyder also signed a law forcing some of Michigan’s over 400,000 unemployed workers to take low-wage jobs after 10 weeks of benefits, even if those jobs pay less than they were making before:

Naturally, not all Michiganders were asked to share in such sacrifices — namely, corporations. While more than 1.5 million of his constituents faced poverty, Snyder enacted a $1.7 billion tax cut for corporations, or about “$30 in corporate tax cuts for every dollar saved in welfare benefit cuts.” Indeed, Snyder pushed to cut the state’s business taxes by nearly $2 billion, or 86 percent.

 

For his first year in office, Snyder ranked as one of the most unpopular governors in the country.

Voting has consequences - and just because someone might have ran a business DOES NOT mean they are suited for high positions in government - straight out of the box.

I hope this is a lesson to people out there.

Please read this (my emphasis) - wise words from a wise person!

In summary, most business people in public office cannot make the transition from thinking about short term profits and maximizing the self interests of businesses to thinking about acting in the best interests of all people, now and for future generations.  All of their decisions and actions are based on or around the concept of money and the pursuit of profit in the shortest time possible.   Concepts such as common interests, social justice, and long term economic and environmental sustainability are just not in their vocabulary.  As discussed in earlier parts of this article, their brains are not developed to think that way.

Government is about operating society, not running a business to make money.  (For those who make the valid argument that government should not waste money and act more like a business that would never consider wasting money, that is an entirely different subject worthy of discussion).  Government is about fairness and requires cooperation. Actions are taken because they are right to do, not because they make money, or cost money.  Developing and following higher principles to guide public decisions are foreign to most buinessmen and women with their imbedded profit driven thinking.  To most of them, leadership in government has been downgraded to using the influence of money and power.  And since most of this money comes from large multinational corporations, it is their views they represent.