If we elect Donald Trump and let him run the country like you run a business.
If a commercial company operated the way the federal government does, then it would go immediately bankrupt.
Let me make it clear. Government should not be run like a business.
Now, of course, no one wants their tax dollars wasted. Cutting government waste is a good thing. But you must be careful and methodical. You must make precise cuts with a scalpel, not a - chainsaw! There's a big difference between cutting waste and running America like a business.
First and foremost, the goal of business is to make the most profit possible. Corporations like McDonald's and Walmart, they don't exist for the public good. They exist to maximize their shareholder returns. This often means paying their workers as little as possible.
Before I started comedy, I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. Do you know what it means when somebody pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It's like, "Hey, if I could pay you less, I would." That's why you end up subsidizing Walmart and McDonald's with your tax dollars.
Many Walmart and McDonald's employees rely on government programs like food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet. When McDonald's says "I'm loving it," the "it" they're referring to is the profits. The aim of government should be to make life better for the people. To provide services that help our nation achieve the common good. It's the very first sentence of the Constitution. See? Promote the general welfare.
And let's not forget. Running a government like a business isn't just inefficient, it's dangerous. Look at what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin. He reversed the revolutionary ideals of worker control, turning the state into a top-down autocracy that functioned like a ruthless corporation. Exploiting labor, Stalin prioritized output over people, and he crushed dissent. The wished for "dictatorship of the proletariat" became just another dictatorship, betraying the workers it claimed to empower. A government should serve its citizens, not treat them like expendable cogs in a profit machine. State capitalism is not a replacement.
The aim of government should be to make life better for the people. To provide services that help our nation achieve the common good. It's the very first sentence of the Constitution. See? Promote the general welfare. (K-Dog's value added content)
But making people's lives better costs money and it doesn't return a profit. Wait, hold on a second. Making a profit is not the point of government. Should we gut health care services for our veterans because it's not profitable? What about inspecting our food? Should we cut Social Security and let seniors starve?
And think about schools, highways, libraries, national parks, mail delivered by the Postal Service. These are public goods that are paid for by the public and are available to everybody. That's the beauty of them.
What politicians really mean when they say they want to "run the government like a business" is they want to privatize services for their corporate backers. Wall Street would love to have its hands on your Social Security. The Trump Organization would love to turn Yellowstone National Park into a private resort for only the wealthiest to enjoy. It's not about efficiency or because these public goods "cost too much." That's rubbish.
Private corporations want to profit at your expense. But we are citizens, not customers. We're voters, not shareholders. Trump and his cabinet are not our CEO and board of directors. They are supposed to be public servants. They are supposed to be working for us.
And let's not forget Trump sucks at running businesses anyway. I can make a whole video about Trump's many, many business failures. And I have. You can watch that next. Businesses take risks in pursuit of money. That is perfectly fine. And if you run a company into the ground, you can go bankrupt like Donald Trump and start a new one. But when you take risks with the US government, you're gambling with people's lives, their constitutional rights, and their pursuit of happiness. You can't just shrug it off and start another country. Again. The purpose of government is not to show a profit. It's to achieve the common good.