In my experience, a great number of Americans tend to think of economists as either ivory tower pedagogues or unrealistic ideologues, while classifying business executives as practical and down-to-earth. Both government and business have number-crunchers, but government numbers’ types are usually economists while business prefers accountants. One reason for this is likely because public policy economics and business economics differ in their basic structures and aims.

In business, an individual or a business provides a good or service to another individual or organization for a defined price. If the revenues from those prices do not cover the operating costs of the business, sooner or later the business must cut costs, raise prices, go bankrupt, or be bought by another business.

In government, a department, agency, or commission provides a service for the public, for which the Treasury provides reimbursement from funds appropriated by Congress to provide that service. While government may buy goods, those goods are bought for use in providing a service. At least, they’re supposed to be, although one might question whether multi-million-dollar DHS productions of Kristi Noem on a horse constitute a public service, even if it turned out that she was riding into the sunset.

In business, the goal is to make a profit, hopefully by providing a solid product or useful service, but in practice any cost-cutting that’s not illegal is allowable, particularly where it comes to wages, and it’s left to the consumers to determine whether they want to pay for the product. Of course, from the beginning of human history, businesses have attempted to corner their market so that the only choice buyers have is to pay an exorbitant price or do without. This was and is known as “free market economics.”

Not surprisingly, that hasn’t changed, which is why the U.S. government ended up regulating business, and why businesses complain about excess government regulation and continue to push for government to be run like a business.

So when politicians talk about running government like a business, voters should be wary. For example, Trump sold himself as a practical businessman. In his case, practicality has primarily translated into amassing funds by shifting costs onto others, failing to fully pay subcontractors, and using his office to enhance family-related businesses on an unprecedented scale. That doesn’t even include trying to gut social programs to finance a war that he promised he wouldn’t ever get us into.

His rhetoric and that of others tend to ignore the fact that failure of government to rein in business excesses in seeking to maximize profits results in more people who need to rely on government income and medical support because they can’t make a living wage on what businesses are paying.

And,so far, I’ve seldom ever heard an accountant consider such economic considerations, and any economist who points them out is considered unrealistic and anti-commerce by those who think government should be run like a business.