For
me, the words of Lincoln at Gettysburg have always meant that, effectively, the
politicians in our government that represent us work for us.
I
have likened it in this way: the U.S. government is like a corporation. At the
top is the CEO (President) and his executive team (Department Secretaries) and
all the managers (Senators and Representatives). Unlike a corporation, we hire
(vote in) the CEO, and he/she hires the executive team. And we hire the
managers. Unlike a corporation, the managers (legislative branch) act as the
Board of Directors, providing advice and consent to the CEO’s actions.
Again,
I want to stress that this is a concept of government that works for me, and
some elements may not match up perfectly with what is taught in a Civics class.
As
to my neighbors and me, we are like shareholders in the corporation/country. We
rightly believe that the CEO and managers work for us. Our positive
satisfaction is what they strive for and for which they are compensated. As
shareholders/constituents, our continued endorsement of the job these people do
is to vote them in during election time. Or the opposite, every four or six
years.
In
a corporation, when a CEO is making poor strategic decisions that pose an
immediate or long-term threat to its success, it falls to the Board of
Directors to exercise its duty and, if necessary, rein in or even fire the
CEO.
It
can be sudden, and the shareholders may not participate much in the decision,
but they know that the action is in their best interest. They feel that way
because they have been assured that the Board is independent of the CEO. They
know that the members have not been chosen by the CEO and do not act in a
partisan manner toward him/her.
So
what are we to make of the current state of our government? We have a CEO that
has little interest in its workings or structure. He has little concern for how
much expertise his key people have in order to do their jobs. His main
objective seems to be to denigrate and reverse the actions of the previous CEO.
His executive team members have staffed (or understaffed) their departments
with demonstrably unqualified or disinterested people.
In
an interview after the launch of his newly published book
The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis says: “I’m trying to think if there’s anybody
who’s just full-throatedly enthusiastic about the enterprise he’s been charged
to run. Rex Tillerson wasn’t. Defense. [Jim] Mattis. And maybe, strangely,
[Steven] Mnuchin. We never hear about him. I keep getting asked what’s the
source of the next financial crisis, and I don’t have an answer because I don’t
know anything, but there’s one thing that’s been eating at me since this man
was elected. It’s the thing that, if it happened, you’d rewind the tape like
in The Usual Suspects and say, (gasps) “Why didn’t I see that
coming?”
So
far, there are a number of concerns that a shareholder could have when it comes
to the performance of the current CEO. The cursory transition effort, as
described by the Michael Lewis book, is certainly one. Lewis focuses his alarm
on the aging workforce of the Department of Energy, “which is no longer
attracting young people as it once did” and the risk of “responding to
long-term risks with short-term solutions.”
Should
a shareholder/voter look to the corporation’s board to address these concerns?
In my take on our government/corporation, one can see that the
board/legislators are aligned with the CEO/president in an alarmingly partisan
way. They are supposed to work for us and listen to our concerns. Is the welfare,
and possibly the survival, of the country more important than the party to
which our President and legislators belong?
D.
Norman
