I just said legislators. That leaves the job wide open for business leaders, Governors, Cabinet Members, Ambassadors, professors, mayors, etc.

I think what this country really needs right now is a successful former CEO. The obvious problems with possible corruption are the biggest issue (see: cheney). But there MUST be an honest CEO out there somewhere. Our government needs to be run more like a business, a profit generating business.

Bitch doesn't like logic. Objectivity is overrated.

. Our government needs to be run more like a business, a profit generating business.

So you want the United States to be moved to Mexico?

Why? I've never comprehended that. You think we should close down unproductive states, or lay off superfluous citizens? You think the government should actually be run so as to turn a profit? For whose benefit? What shareholders?

There's a real, qualitative difference between public and private interests. I can't fathom how it is that so many people are erroneously persuaded otherwise.

Logic and objectivity are constructs of teh patriarchy to keep women under the boots of het men!

States and citizens aren't the employees. Employees are the employees. Close unproductive departments, lay off superfluous employees.

The citizens are the shareholders, and we should benefit from the government.

A government run like a business would be appalled at the kind of deficits that we've run since beginning of the this country. Our government hasn't operated "in the black" in 200 years. (I swear to god if anybody tells me that Clinton did it I will slap you, that is a LIE perpetuated by people who arn't even smart enough to just look up the raw numbers.)

The "company's" income would come from tax revenue from imports and exports, also from services rendered to it's customers, the citizens.

The analogy from government to company isn't a hard one to make. There are hundreds of companies operating in the US with infrastructures and assets larger than most of the countries in the world.

And our government should absolutely operate at a profit. Japan, as well as a few european countries, do it.

That's such poor reasoning I don't even know where to start. But let's go with this - a private company's only motive is to increase its profits by any means necessary (that it can get away with). A government's motive, according to our own Constitution (maybe you should try reading it sometime), is to "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."

If you can convince me that there's anything in there about increasing profits by any means necessary then I'd have to say you're a lot smarter than you look. Does that mean there's no motive for fiscal responsibility? Of course not. But if you just can't see the genuine, qualitative differences between the public interests outlined in the preamble and a personal, amoral profit motive, then, in fact, you're not smarter then you look.

making money and running with moral guidelines need not be mutually exclusive. If you think this is false, then stop reading now, because you're gonna dismiss everything else I have to say anyways hippie.

Our government's mission should not be to turn a profit. But if doing what's necessary to keep it running, and continue to "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" then they should.

You obviously have a very bleak outlook on corporations, so you're really never going to understand this.

Our government provides a great deal of goods and services to a great deal of people. Is it so wrong to want them to provide those goods and services at the highest quality for the lowest cost? To actually WANT to make it's customers happy and coming back for more? Companies have a vested interest in serving their customers, without their customers they wouldn't exist. How is a government any different?

A CEO needs to know how to promote the right people for the right job, manage his companies finances to keep it from collapsing, and negotiate deals with it's customers, suppliers, and rivals. Are all of those things not desired skills of a president?

Oh come now Zarth. If we had profits... then... we'd be the best!
Don't you want to be the best?
What are you a terrorist or something?

There are plenty of CEO's who lack many, or all, of those skills.

Companies have a vested interest in turning a profit. Period. If they can increase their profits by alienating or ignoring some of their customers, they will do so. I'd hate to see the federal government run "like a business" for just that reason.

And then you backpedalled. As I say, I have no objection to fiscal responsibility in a government. But here:

You basically concede, without actually admitting it, that you recognize that I'm right - that the mission of a democratic government is qualitatively distinct from the mission of a profit-oriented corporation.

Right. Aren't you the government employee, here?

The rest of what you said (which I did read), was little more than a desperate attempt to salvage your original statement from its fundamental fallacy, and was therefore inconsistent with your admission, quoted above, that you in fact have no idea what you're talking about.

And I'm not a hippie, I'm a commie. If you can't resist the political put-down, you can at least get it right.

I'm still trying to figure out why you're in the Air Force. Shouldn't you be working for Blackwater?

Here's the fundamental difference between governments and businesses regarding profits.

A business values it's employees so that it can turn a profit.
A government values it's profits so that it can serve its "employees".

Do you see the difference?
Yes if the government could turn a profit that would be fantastic. It would allow them to better serve us (at least in theory). But the ends do not justify the means. The end-goal is to "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." Yes, one way to do that is to turn a profit. But that is not the only way. It is more important to stay focussed on the goal than one hypothetical solution. Especially when the solution in question is one that can so easily lose site of the original goal. If we focus on making profits, we run the very real risk of forgetting what we were raising profits for. You can't argue that it hasn't happened before.

If we as a people can be completely provided for by our government without any kind of profits being generated, our constitutional goals are being met and we should all be content. As you said, "Our government hasn't operated "in the black" in 200 years." Now in the past 200 years have our goals to "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," been compromised at all? Have they been completely provided for? No. But I think it is a very very dangerous assumption, and one that I would challenge you to back up with as many facts as you can possibly provide, that profits are the cure-all of our problems.

Please, if you can, do so.

You flip flop like a politician, give it a try! Seems that you probally fit most of the qualifying standards:

doesn't it bother you that about 40-50% of what the government collects in taxes from us goes to pay the interest on our debts to other countries? If we could ever get rid of that debt, theoretically we should have more money to help improve and promote a better life for our own people as well as those around the world. Right now, we concentrate so much on other countries, we are forgetting about our own.