Learning From GE ... Rediscovering Goldwater

General Electric is a huge and complicated company spanning many unrelated businesses with global reach. GE is unique in that it is still a successful conglomerate (very recent results not withstanding).

Leadership
GE is also unique in that when it promotes someone to CEO, the person is always relatively young (under 50) and is expected to be CEO for 20 years. The CEO has to live with decisions and the results for a long time. The person is then asked to take a look at the company and make tough leadership decisions:

• What are the most important things we should focus on and do well?
  
• Are we uniquely qualified to meet the challenges this business unit faces?
• Should we be in this business at all?

GE's leadership regularly admits mistakes, recognize changes in the marketplace, and exits businesses that would be better served by another company. They don't throw good money after bad! They get out completely. They get out quickly.

Federal Government
Remember, there are lots of things that the Federal Government is not mandated to do by the Constitution. Even if the mandate was there, it does not mean that the Federal Government / Agencies are the place it should happen. The Constitution mandates either decentralization to the states or divesting to the people.

Any Real Republicans Left?

"...the federal government should withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserves to the states."

Barry Goldwater
The Conscience of a Conservative

Note the two important words in this quote: promptly and totally. By the way, I would add an important phrase to the end of the Goldwater quote... or to the people. There are things that the states shouldn't even be doing.

A Sad Case Study
Remember when Republicans wanted to abolish the Department of Education! This is a perfect case study. Nowhere in the Constitution is the word education, because the function of education is solely reserved for the states. In the early 1990s the House Republicans introduced legislation to abolish the Department of Education. Reagan had suggested it in the '80s. The Republican base LOVED the idea, but hold on ... did they REALLY want to do what Goldwater suggested... withdraw promptly and totally? NO!

At the time, the Department of Education had a budget of about $35 billion, but the legislation projected a savings of about 10% of the total budget. The Republican bill simply moved 90% of the functions to other departments. The public relations spin was there, but the Bill, proposed by Republicans, simply re-arranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. Grade for Republicans versus the Goldwater Test: D-.

How Far Have We Fallen?
As bad as that was, now we have a Republican President that created "No Child Left Behind". The President is now the Superintendent of Schools for the nation... the Congress and the Department of Education is the School Board.

I ask again...

Are there ANY real Republicans left?