Florida Today Letter to the Editor
May 10th, 2008

Dear Editor,

I frequently hear local candidates talk about how they will run government like a business, which sounds like a laudable goal.

When I hear the word “business”, I think of entrepreneurs taking risks, the creation of profits, steady growth and doing things efficiently. Clearly, these are not things one would normally associate with government, which is probably why candidates say such things; who wants to say they will run the government like… a government?

However, treating government like a business is a disastrous idea. With the exception of doing things efficiently, none of the things I have outlined above should be the province of government. The purpose of a government is to protect the rights of its citizens.

This shouldn’t require our officials to take risks, they shouldn’t be trying to figure out how to profit from the taxes taken by force, and with the exception of scaling up police and courts to handle increases in population, they definitely shouldn’t be trying to grow the government.

Government isn’t a business, and the easiest way to remember this is to acknowledge that you don’t deal with the government because you want to - you deal with it because you HAVE TO.

- Matt Nye