Reason #21: The Fallacy of the CEO President

Another way George W. Bush tried to burnish his “outsider” credentials when he was running for the White House was by bragging that would be the first president with an MBA. He said was going to run the White House like a CEO runs a company. And when he got elected, he followed through on his promise by tapping a bunch of CEOs and high-ranking corporate executives to join his administration.

This enthusiasm for private sector-style management is all well and good. I come from a business background myself, so even I was a little taken by the notion of streamlining the functions of government. But aside from the fact that if the government were a business CEO Bush would have been fired for gross negligence, there’s only one problem with the idea: when it comes to how our government is supposed to function, it’s fundamentally un-American.

When they designed our government, the founding fathers did everything they could to limit the power of our presidents. But Chief Executive Officers are treated like gods nowadays and they have almost as much clout. From the safety and comfort of plush corporate offices, they close factories with the stroke of a pen and lay off thousands of workers without ever having to face them or explain their actions. George W. Bush brought that same kind of arrogance and lack of accountability to Washington. In his first term in office, he only held 17 press conferences, the fewest for any president in recent history. By contrast, Bush’s father made 84 such appearances.

The founding fathers did not intend for our government to operate like a corporate board room, where the top brass issues orders and underlings snap to. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and our other early leaders wanted our government to be extremely inefficient. By their design, the three branches of government are supposed to grind against each other and slow down, rather than speed up, any decision making. The founders hoped this friction, and occasional gridlock would force policymakers to come together and work out compromises.

But lengthy negotiations and messy compromises are anathema to corporate executives. They act swiftly and, often, ruthlessly with only one goal in mind: to maximize profit. But in government, there’s no such thing as profit. The only commodity in Washington is power. And true to his self-given nickname, our “CEO President” did everything he could to gain as much power as possible. He spurned compromise and grabbed authority from the other branches of government. He rarely met with congressional leaders. And when they passed laws he didn’t agree with, he misused things called signing statements to avoid following them.

NEXT: Reason #22: Thwarting the Constitution