Since you are my closest bestest friends, I will let you in on a little secret: I am freaking tired of hearing people talk about how "government should be run like a business." Complaining about Amtrak, complaining about the post office, privatize this, privatize that, business business blah blah blah.

Does anyone stop to think what it means to run government like a business?

First we should probably decide why we have government in the first place. Anyone have an idea? I do: The purpose of government is to correct for market failure. Repeat that line a couple of times, will you? You'll need it later. Trust me.

Okay. So that's government-- what's a business? You know this one right away: a business sells goods and services in an attempt to make a profit.

Now it's time for a little simple arithmetic. What do you get when you add business to government?

Your garbage rotting away on the curb.

But wait, you say, Why wouldn't they pick up my garbage? Why is it rotting? A good business wouldn't give me bad service!

As it turns out, this good business we're imagining has to give you bad service, or no service at all. Because honey? You live in a neighborhood too dangerous for pizza deliverers and truck drivers to be safe in. No service for you. And you over there? You live too far away from other people, and it's going to cost more to pick up your garbage than you're willing to pay. No service for you either. And don't you for a minute think that your tiny little grandma's garbage is going to get picked up unless you move her into a nursing home, because she doesn't make enough garbage to be worth picking up. It's just not efficient.

See, when you aim for efficiency with things like residential refuse collection and sewer lines and social insurance, markets fail.

My other little secret is that I cannot stand the automatic assumption is that businesses always do a good job and government always does a bad job. What, you think there's no such thing as a badly-run business? Let me think... have you heard of Enron? Did you know that Amazon.com didn't start turning a profit until just a couple of years ago? There are plenty of businesses out there that are pissing off their shareholders, and their customers. We need good government services... not government services farmed out to the lowest bidder.

So there you are. Next time someone hits you with a little "government should be run like a business," you can bust out the market failure and kick a little ass of your own.