Detroit is a business?"

[Locke09]

Um, how do the profits get generated? By providing goods and services better than competitors. The 'word' better is defined by the consumer, so it can refer to price, value or whatever each consumer looks for. Businesses are not able to just call up someone and demand money. For that, they need government.

In a municipal model, the 'consumers' are the resident and businesses located in the jurisdiction.

If a store, say Joe's Emporium, does not satisfy their customers, the customers no longer shop at Joe's. Maybe Frank's up the street is cleaner or has lower prices. Joe either keeps doing things the same way and eventually goes out of business, or he changes his business practices to gain new customers.

For a city, people and businesses move out, and it's up to the city to either change or go bankrupt.

I was going to agree [[and I still do in part), but then I realized that people are not going to abandon any governmental entity [[city, state or country) as quickly as they will a business. People consider themselves to have more invested in their city, state or country. My life is so tangled up in this city that I love that I have probably stayed far longer than is "rational". I want it to thrive and I have made sacrifices to try and help it thrive. I'm not doing that for any business. I actually grieve over its deterioration. I'm not doing that for any business.

I'm just saying that government serves a different purpose. It cannot be run just like a business, or it won't meet the very needs [[services if you will) that citizens [[some of whom aren't paying a penny for services) are expecting. If a candidate doesn't understand the special challenges of running a city, as opposed to a business, their naivete will eventually cause more harm than good.

Why isn't it sufficient to say that government should strive to be as efficient and effective as possible. That is not solely the realm of business.

[Detroitnerd]

Why isn't it sufficient to say that government should strive to be as efficient and effective as possible. That is not solely the realm of business.

Good question, Locke. I would guess that it helps hammer home the old party line of "Government bad; business good."

But we all know that it's more complicated than that.