Deans Essay #2 Natasha Chopra Cohort: K

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight. This quote by Henry R. Luce, the founder of Time the Weekly Newsmagazine, supports my belief that business experience is necessary to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Business experience is essential because it imparts communication skills, organizational effectiveness, stability of emotions and above all, broad administrative abilities which are crucial for successful businessmen as well as Congressmen. A Congressman should be a visionary. Clear vision is critical for a business to be successful and in order to be a good Congressman, one must have the capacity to inspire and lead a nation. I advocate that this capacity can be acquired through business experience. A visionary has great capacity to organize and enables a team, organization or society to achieve its objectives. Currently with the Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on issues of national importance, such as abortion, it is extremely important to have more congressmen who can rise above party politics and work as a team to achieve common goals; this comes more naturally to people with business experience as businessmen know how to work in a team. Being a team player could avoid the prospects of the Fiscal Cliff which the country is currently facing due to congressmen not working with others across the aisle. With the current economic turmoil, America really needs policies that foster entrepreneurial spirit as well as growth of small businesses; who can better formulate such policies than people with business experience? A whooping 80 percent of Congressmen have no business background or experience. In the past, before this economic turmoil that we are currently facing, many Congressmen were able to do well without business experience but due to the issues that they have to deal with today, business experience should be necessary. Congress is currently, jousting over deficit reduction, spending cuts, tax reform, and the role of the federal government in pulling the country out of a prolonged jobs crisis. EPI warns that our elected Representatives may want to dust off their Econ 101 textbook (if they have one) before trying to tackle weighty questions about the impact of taxes, spending, and debt on our economy and the labor market" (Lillis). According to Michael Saltsman, a researcher at EPI, due to the intricacy of the economic issues lawmakers are dealing with this year, business experience and a formal introduction to those topics "would certainly help them to evaluate these things better (Lillis). I strongly advocate that in order to be a Congressman in todays society it is a necessity to have business experience. Business experience teaches one to be a team player and a visionary; both really important qualities for a successful Congressman. Finally, due to the economic turmoil which has led to the prolonged jobs crisis, it is dire that our Congressmen have business experience especially when dealing with business related issues such as debt, taxes and spending.

Website Used: http://thehill.com/homenews/news/177897-report-three-fourths-of-congress-has-no-education-inbusiness-economics