A Thought About Mitt Romney

I just listened to Mitt Romney give a simplistic statement that people who go into public service are not the only ones who build America, and that businessmen do so also. He suggested that the CEO working to build his company, together with his many counterparts building their own companies help to build America.

Image source

Of course businesses are important to America and the country needs businessmen. Government is also important to America and the country needs government workers. Indeed, the United States more than other countries has developed through the action of civil society and the country needs people to work in foundations and civil society organizations.

There are certainly people in business who are out for themselves and don't care much if at all about the public wellbeing. So to there are people in government and civil society who just wanted jobs as there are in business, and there are people in these sectors who are focused on their personal ambitions and not on the health of society. Think about the exorbitant salaries of some NGO executives, or the people who steal from their "do-gooder" non-profits.

Perhaps more important, there are business leaders who are deeply concerned with doing good. There are probably even more people who go into government and non-profit organizations accepting financial sacrifice for the chance to serve the public.

What Romney fails to mention is that it is important to get the incentives right. American business has created huge financial incentives for business executives who lead companies into short term profits (or worse, the appearance of high profitability for a year or two even if that appearance is hollow). We fail to impose sanctions on those who hurt the public, and indeed often don't even shame them. And we don't always honor the folk who do the most for society.

Romney points with pride at his career which includes leading the organization planning and managing the 2002 Winter Olympics, heading a consulting firm and a private equity firm, serving one term as Governor of Massachusetts, and headed a section of the Mormon Church in Massachusetts. This is a distinguished career.

I wonder whether it is a presidential career. The United States Government is much, much, much bigger and more complex than anything that Romney has ever run. The President of the world's greatest economic and military power not only has responsibilities to the people of the United States but has to be deeply aware of the impact of American actions globally. Does Romney understand foreign economic and foreign security policy well enough to entrust him with the future of the nation? Can he run the biggest enterprise in the world well? Indeed, does he have the team to draw upon to do so?

Naive statements about the benefits of business leaders doing their thing for the whole economy (especially as we are digging our way out of the financial hole that some of those business leaders dug out of greed and ignorance) makes me even wonder whether he has the intellectual chops for the job of president of these United States.