GOVERNMENT IS NOT A BUSINESS

The subject on Chris Hayes’ show Up this morning was federal aid for the victim of Hurricane Sandy. The talking heads hopelessly intertwined the concept of insurance with that of government. They seemed to be unable to make a clear distinction between the two, which stimulated me to think  about business and government; they are worlds apart.

At one time in my life, I was a Rotarian, a community service organization. The newly elected club president, a successful hotel owner, made the pronouncement during his inauguration, “I intend to run the club like a business”.  I thought to myself that the club is in trouble; what business raises money to give it away? What Rotary club exists to make a profit? The government like the Rotary club is not a business like an insurance company; it is a gigantic service organization. It is there to do for communities what they cannot or will not do for themselves. A big part of government is to collect just the exact amount of money needed and do the most possible good by redistributing every penny; that is a balancing act man can never do perfectly.  An insurance company does the same thing except it keeps as much money as possible by doing the least amount possible—instead of doing the most good they want to make the most profit. Regardless, they both need money to operate.

We can look at both as being adverse hazard operations; however, actual massive hazards when they happen, such as Sandy, emphasize the real difference. The principle of government operations is to collect money from as many people as possible and distribute it based on the principle that eventually everyone benefits . . . in this case the residents in a wide swath of the north east coast. This is the principle hated by Republicans and loved by Democrats. Apparently, it is rational to the innate Republican mind especially those not hurt by the storm that the people who were hurt should somehow take care of themselves. The unspoken part is that those who were not hurt assume they never will be hurt—good luck with that. In contrast, it is rational for the people who were hurt that they paid taxes therefore the government should help them recover from the damage. Clearly, in the aftermath of Sandy, American greed meets American Altruism in the public eye. Republicans seem to feel that they do not want their money used to help others—every, for anything. This rationalization is so trite that as American 67 members of the United States House of Representatives embarrassed all of us in front of the World.  They act as children with pockets stuffed full of candy but refuse to share—every last one of them was a Republican.