On Thursday, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced that former Gov. Pete Ricketts will
replace
resigning Sen. Ben Sasse in the U.S. Senate.
After thanking the governor and Sasse for his service, Ricketts gave acceptance remarks where he enthusiastically
proclaimed
that he wants to make the federal government “run like a business.”
No doubt, Ricketts will make a great U.S. senator — as Gov. Pillen said, he is a strong proponent of limited government and fiscal accountability — but under no circumstances should he try to make the government run more like a business.
Over the course of the last few decades, many Republicans have mistakenly equated making the government more efficient with turning it into a business. While their hearts (and, in many cases, their minds) are in the right place, using this phraseology plays right into the Democratic Party’s hands. Many Democrats actually want the government to become more like a business, but they have another name for it: nationalization, or socialism.
For those who have ignored the last century of economic history (and to be clear, Ricketts, who is a proven limited government Republican and accomplished businessman in his own right, understands it more than most), the government is wholly incapable of running like a business in any way, shape, or form. The
bureaucracy
is far too bungled and its red tape much too burdensome to ever serve the public in an efficient manner. That’s why
nearly every
Veteran’s Affairs hospital performs worse than competing medical providers and we all cry when it’s time to renew our licenses at the DMV.
The government also hardly ever turns a profit. That’s why Social Security is going bankrupt, and the United States Postal Service — unlike FedEx, the United Parcel Service, and its other competitors — continues to operate at a net loss.
It can’t even hire people competently. Just look at how the Office of Personnel Management’s USA Staffing — the entity often tasked with vetting and hiring federal employees — compares to its private sector competitors such as Monster. One
uses
outdated technology and frequently gets hacked by predatory interests; the other is a well-oiled machine that always seems to get the job done right.
These are problems that can’t be superficially remedied, because they’re rooted in the very nature of our government. There’s nothing entrepreneurial about bureaucracy. America’s millions of private sector companies specialize in filling marketplace niches. The government only specializes in causing problems and chaos through overreach.
Nevertheless, those who run the government are full of hubris, and they’re gluttons for punishment. Despite their embarrassing track record, they want to
create
a government-run cryptocurrency,
bail out
the uneconomical post office, and, by the looks of it, even empower the OPM to assume more of the private sector’s HR responsibilities.
Is this what incoming Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts really wants? Of course not. He’s an astute businessman and consummate professional who wants to shrink — not expand — the size of the federal government. That said, he needs to be careful with his phraseology moving forward.
The pragmatic operators in the far Left are working hard to normalize their
socialist agenda
in Congress and the hearts and minds of the American people. They are doing it by cloaking their dreams of socialism with seemingly innocuous phrases like “having the government run more like a business.” Republicans in Congress should not help them in their own game; they should beat them at it by exposing their agenda for all to see.
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Ricketts, a proven tax-cutter and regulation-slasher, will put the Senate in a stronger position to crush the far Left’s market-stifling agenda. Once his staff and colleagues bring him up to speed with the linguistic tricks of the Democratic Party, nothing will stop him from being the results-oriented conservative reformer that he’s already proven capable of being. And for that, the American public should be grateful.
Michael Pappas is a former U.S. congressman who served on the Small Business Committee. Pappas also served as an appointee at the Small Business Administration.
