Run government like this?

The next time you hear someone say we should run government like a business, ask, “Which ones?”

The ones that have computers call you with take-it-or-leave-it delivery times? The ones that cancel appointments shortly before – and sometimes after – their scheduled arrival times? The ones that bash bid competitors rather than doing necessary measurements and calculations? The ones that outsource customer service to folks who struggle mightily with the language you speak?

Maybe it’s the ones that keep on selling or asking myriad questions instead of simply taking your money: “Would you like the extended protection plan? Do you belong to our Savers Club? How about the Kids Club? Would you like to save 10 percent by signing up for our credit card? If you fill out this survey, you can win a prize. If you say I did a good job, I get a prize!”

No, it’s probably not those ones. So is it the ones that sell your personal information to others? The ones that charge you for services because you failed to “opt out,” rather than letting you “opt in”? (Oh, you didn’t know that? Check the fine print in paragraph 12 on page 14.)

Not those businesses either? Then how about the ones that sell investments and then bet against them? Or the ones that push loans without checking whether you can pay for them? Or the ones that create highly leveraged securities without looking at the underlying mortgages because they’ve “figured out” algorithms that eliminate risk? No, probably not them. After all, they’re implicated in the crash of the economy.

If we’re going to run government like a business, what will that mean for executive pay? In 2009, a chief executive officer of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company was paid, on average, $9.25 million in total compensation. So what should the leader of the free world make? Currently, it’s $400,000 a year.

OK, so maybe we draw the line at executive pay when it comes to running government like a business. And we certainly don’t want our elected leaders to emulate those beacons of personal responsibility who are blaming one another for the oil spill that is ruining the Gulf Coast. Or the ones who blame government for not stopping them from producing dangerous cars, drugs and investment products.

You know, maybe, just maybe, we can face up to the reality that government and business are distinctly different ventures with decidedly different goals and there is as much to loathe as to like about either one.

Ethics submerged. Companies that run offshore drilling operations seemed to like it when their overseers overlooked clear ethics guidelines that other government agencies have to follow. An inspector general’s report shows that the Minerals Management Service thought of itself as Club Fed, eagerly taking the lavish gifts doled out by oil and gas companies, the New York Times has reported.

Workers in a federal office in Lake Charles, La., accepted meals, tickets to ballgames and hunting trips from a company working on oil platforms. But that’s boring compared with the Denver office, where an earlier investigation found that MMS inspectors were literally in bed with oil company employees.

Did any of this matter? Well, several years ago oil industry officials would fill out their own inspection reports in pencil and then regulators would trace over the letters in pen. One agency worker conducted inspections on oil platforms while angling for a drilling company job. Ken Salazar, the secretary of the Interior, which oversees MMS, has assured everyone that ethical leaks have been plugged. We shall see.

The inspector general did not unearth evidence that such shenanigans played a direct role in the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, but it does show that business and government mix about as well as oil and water.