# Why is private sector experience so trumpeted by the GOP? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 15, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511 "2011-06-15T00:36:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/41 "2011-06-21T22:58:36Z")
> [@](#): > > The entire country operates on money that the private sector earns. It’s not like the money originates in the private sector, whence it flows everywhere else. You might just as well say that the entire country operates on money earned by union workers, directly or indirectly, and that you should therefore elect a union guy. Or that it operates, directly or indirectly, on money I personally earn, and so you should elect me. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/42 "2011-06-22T01:13:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You guys have it backwards. Business experience matters not because you run government like a business, or because you want a CEO to make government more efficient. Rather, you want someone who understands business to be in charge of the government, because government is responsible for regulating business. If the regulators don’t understand the pressures of business or the requirements for a business to be successful, they’re not likely to do a very good job when telling businesses how they must operate. > > They simply cannot relate to the small business owner who runs his own home renovation firm. Maybe he’s got five or six employees, and would like to hire a few more. His wife is his accountant. He’s got a lawyer who does a few hours of work a year helping to file his various business documents. Every time he goes to his lawyer or has to hire an accountant it’s frightening because they charge big bucks and what they do is so far out of his wheelhouse he feels like he has no control over the situation. > > It would be nice to have people in government who understand what it’s like to be that small proprietor - who understand it in their bones, from having lived the life. And it would be nice to have some who took a small business like that and grew it into a major firm, and understands what _that_ takes and how government can throw wrenches into the works. And you think somebody like Mitt Romney understands that? Romney wasn’t running a small business - he was running a multi-billion dollar investment company. He probably had more assistants working for him when he was in the private sector than he did when he was Governor. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/43 "2011-06-22T02:24:54Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > When a person like that reads about a new requirement that will force him to track every payment over $600 and file a form with the government, it _terrifies_ him. His wife doesn’t have time to do it, and an accountant will cost him a fortune. His receipts are in a shoe box because he works 12 hour days and signs checks at a dozen places and never seems to have time to sort it all out. And doing paperwork is the thing he absolutely hates more than anything. Accounting is a basic business skill. If your small proprietor isn’t keeping track of every cheque written, at sums far less than $600, he’ll be bankrupt and out of business inside 18 months. This argument is so stupid it argues for those regulations and against your ostensible point. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/44 "2011-06-22T02:42:21Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Accounting is a basic business skill. If your small proprietor isn’t keeping track of every cheque written, at sums far less than $600, he’ll be bankrupt and out of business inside 18 months. This argument is so stupid it argues for those regulations and against your ostensible point. Accounting for how you’re spending money is completely different thing from filling out and sending a goddamn IRS form to every company you’ve spent over $600 at over the course over a year. Someone buying a coffee a day at Starbucks spends more than $600 there annually. I operate a small business. This would have been a nightmare and taken at least a couple days of my time. I would have had to send 1099s to every single office supply chain, Best Buy, various gas stations, airlines, restaurants, websites, hotels, parking lots, etc. It would have been just totally nuts. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/45 "2011-06-22T02:46:04Z")
I try to imagine the small businessmen I know being afraid to see their accountants or shuddering at the thought of keeping track of their business expenses, but it’s just not happening. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/46 "2011-06-22T04:14:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You guys have it backwards. Business experience matters not because you run government like a business, or because you want a CEO to make government more efficient. Rather, you want someone who understands business to be in charge of the government, because government is responsible for regulating business. If the regulators don’t understand the pressures of business or the requirements for a business to be successful, they’re not likely to do a very good job when telling businesses how they must operate. This appears to be special pleading that is the exact (flipped) analogue to the argument that Judge Vaughn R. Walker had to recuse himself from the Proposition 8 verdict because only heterosexuals could understand marriage. There are many things wrong with the argument. The most telling is that no one in the private sector operates this way. CEOs are fungible; they move from corporation to corporation despite often not having any experience in the industry of their new hire. Their compensation comes from having the special skill of being able to run a corporation. They don’t need to have the skills of people on the line or in sales or R&D. They have a chain of reportees that amass this information for that. That is exactly the way the government works as well. Therefore the proper leader for a governmental position is someone who best exhibits the special skills of running a governmental operation. The next most serious objection is that, \*pace \*Calvin Coolidge, the business of America is not business. Regulation of business is one tiny piece of the government as a whole. Very little of the executive branch, except possibly the regulatory agencies, and very little of Congress has anything to do with business regulation. Putting in someone from business to head any area will be counterproductive. As proof, let me present the seemingly billions of examples of appointees from business who while in office bend the rules to benefit their businesses and who go back to business at vastly higher salaries now that they know how to manipulate Washington. It is a public disgrace, not a sound governmental policy. As for the 1099 reporting requirement, I’m somewhat less incensed than you seem to be. You see, I was actually the business manager for a magazine for 10 years, with one of my duties issuing 1099-MISC forms to the correct people. Since I kept full records in Quicken Basic of all money that flowed in and out, day by day, and dollar by dollar, creating the tax work at the end of the year was a straightforward procedure than managed to frighten me less, say, than a viewing of the new Atlas Shrugged movie. Adding vendors to the list would have entailed no more pain. In the year 2011 I’d wager that far more small businesses use Quicken or its competitors than shoeboxes. Making life immeasurably easier is one of the first tricks that small entrepreneurs figure out for themselves. But it matters not. Since you conveniently leave it out of your post, I’d like to inform people that on April 14, “Today, President Obama signed a law that removes the expanded “1099” reporting requirement from the Affordable Care Act. This is a big win for small businesses.” The reason for the reporting was to cut one of the right’s favorite loopholes when it comes to non-businesspeople. The reporting would force businesses to cut down on under-the-table cash payments that mostly would go unrecorded. IOW, money would flow in as reported taxes from places not reported in the past. So much for the billions in new revenue by attacking cheats and frauds. Apparently business had enough power to get this horrible example of justice, equality, and fairness quashed despite the desperate lack of business leaders at the top. We can all breathe easier now that it’s been rescinded. At least until we find out what less powerful population will pay the price of not being business and so having rules changes imposed to pull the lost billions out of their teeth. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/47 "2011-06-22T16:55:39Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > It makes perfect sense to me that you want someone who understands the needs of the private sector in office. If you want the government to spend $XX billion on something, you need to either raise taxes, or figure out how to increase private sector revenue such that you collect $XX billion extra in taxes at the unchanged rate. > > Some Republicans truly believe that the last option is superior to the first, for everyone involved. And someone with private sector experience is best-equipped to make that happen. Others are just greedy corrupt bastards, of course. Just about everyone agrees that option 2 is better. It involves not only more tax revenue from more economic activity, but reduced expenditures for unemployment and the like. Republicans seem to be particularly bad at growing the economy to make this happen. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/48 "2011-06-22T19:24:37Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > This is something that has always really bugged me. > > Yes, there are a few ways in which government and business are similar. They both should be run in an efficient manner, for example. > > But they are fundamentally very, very different. At the most basic level. For example, the goal of a business is to create a profit, in fact to create as much profit as possible. Now people differ on what they think the goal of government should be but I don’t think there’s much disagreement that the goal of government is NOT to create a profit. I think that there is also a perception among some people that sometimes career bureaucrats are “out of touch” with the plight(s) of the common man. Of course, this happens with corporate executives, too. Or anyone “rich”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/49 "2011-06-22T19:42:44Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Accounting is a basic business skill. If your small proprietor isn’t keeping track of every cheque written, at sums far less than $600, he’ll be bankrupt and out of business inside 18 months. This argument is so stupid it argues for those regulations and against your ostensible point. I ran my own small business for 10 years. There’s a big difference between sitting down with a list of canceled cheques and quickly entering each one into quickbooks, and having to maintain detailed accounts for every vendor, including their tax numbers, and then filling out a form for every one of them when you spend $600 there. And don’t forget that you have to contact each vendor for their tax information, and that since you’re also a vendor to others, you’re going to be hassled repeatedly for your own tax info by the customers of your products or service, eaxh of whom is also filling out 1099’s. There also would have been an increased auditing burden - the IRS was going to hire an army of extra auditors in part because of this requirement. It appears that even the Obama administration agrees with me, since they quickly signed off on the removal of the requirement. Of course, that means they have to increase the estimated cost of the health care bill, since they can no longer rely on the revenue they thought they’d get from this. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/50 "2011-06-24T09:46:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He ain’t got a chance. His pizza sucks. How did Godfather’s do under Herman Cain’s leadership? I can remember a couple decades ago when they had restaurants all over the place; now I only know of one. I keep hearing that he’s the ex-CEO, but not whether he was any good at it. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You guys have it backwards. Business experience matters not because you run government like a business, or because you want a CEO to make government more efficient. Rather, you want someone who understands business to be in charge of the government, because government is responsible for regulating business. If the regulators don’t understand the pressures of business or the requirements for a business to be successful, they’re not likely to do a very good job when telling businesses how they must operate. Sounds rather like putting the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse. Regulations aren’t placed on businesses for the fun of it, but to keep them operating in ways that are fair to everyone. I reject your idea that the best person to create and implement those regulations is someone who sympathizes with the burden placed on businesses to comply. I want those regulations handled by someone who has my interests at heart, too. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/51 "2011-06-30T23:13:48Z")
Social Security is run on 2percent of its income. It is extremely efficient. Does anyone think privatizing it would make it better? The private sector in incapable of matching it. Health care suffers because of the insurance companies. No way they will give up that money maker or cut the cost and increase efficiency. They are not trying to provide services. that are trying to squeeze as much money out of it as possible. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511/52 "2011-09-17T02:59:56Z")
Bush was pushing Ken Lay as his secretary of the Treasury. he had business experience. But something went wrong. Enron went under and he was convicted of fraud and sent to jail;. But he had business experience, and that is important. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-private-sector-experience-so-trumpeted-by-the-gop/585511.md?page=2)