During the recent holidays I sent out the U.S. House of Representatives calendar as my traditional holiday greeting to many of my constituents just as I had in previous years.  This year’s calendar included scenes of the Capitol building during various seasons, but it also had a surprise.  The month of November was printed with 31 days.  Rather than returning the calendar for a corrected version, I accepted the company’s offer of a 2003 version with 13 months beginning December 2002 at a discounted price.  But in sending out the erroneous 2002 version, I couldn’t resist enclosing a tongue-in-cheek letter that read in part as follows:

“I am pleased to enclose your 2002 Historic Calendar which I hope you will enjoy and find useful through November 30th, 2002.  If you wish to rely upon it beyond November 30th, you may find yourself a day late for Christmas and New Year’s Day.  For some reason, the company to which these calendars were contracted gave November 31 days, which even in a leap year has only 30 days.  So, after November 30th, you should stow this calendar away as a keepsake and reminder that the often used refrain ‘we should run government like a business’ is not always the best policy.”

            The error in the calendar is a rather harmless business mistake for which the company accepted responsibility and moved rather quickly to correct.  But the Enron debacle is no harmless error and the apparent illegal and unethical behavior of its management is obvious and seems pervasive.

Business and government have similar ingredients for success. The effectiveness and efficiency of both depends upon the preparation and ethics of the people at the helm.  If those leaders are ill prepared or unethical bad things happen and good people get hurt.  Both government and business are dedicated to serving the public and it is through this service that citizens earn a living and are protected.  But if individuals rather than service become the focus, the missions fail.

            Despite their similarities, the current Enron debacle highlights the biggest difference between business and government.  The role of business is creating jobs and growing our economy.  The primary role of government is to protect and secure its citizens.  No one at Enron’s helm seemed concerned about their workers’ protection and security.  Its leaders created an atmosphere of excess, about which former CEO Ken Lay bragged, gave those climbing the ranks “something to aspire to.” 

It is becoming evident as we learn more about the energy company’s collapse, that those at the top were more concerned about enriching themselves than providing a strong, viable company.   Through improper accounting and dummy corporations, they hid the real story of Enron’s status from their employees and the public. 

In government and business things should not just look right but be right.  Shell games and fancy footwork were used for years to hide our nation’s deficit and the end result was a serious recession.   Carrying such unscrupulousness to its extreme can lead to situations such as that we are witnessing in Argentina.  Honesty and integrity are the hallmarks of good leaders and good government.  Unlike the business world, the government must put the needs of the people first, not after the bottom line. 

The collapse of Enron only adds to my determination to resist any attempts to model government operations on the corporate world.  When efforts fail to produce an accurate calendar it is a relative harmless inconvenience.  But when it wipes out people’s life savings it becomes a national tragedy.

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