Firing Employees

The other Republican presidential candidates are all over Mitt Romney for his statement concerning "firing". Rick Perry is the leader of this pack.

Firing means to take an individual off a company payroll or discharge an organization who has been providing service. The term "firing" is normally used less frequently than in the discharge of organizations. Mitt Romney later explained that his use of the term was in connection with the discharge of services from a healthcare organization, but that is somewhat beside the point. Rick Perry further indicated that he was really referring to the previous actions of Mitt Romney, in firing people when Romney was operating companies.

The discharge of an employee can occur for several reasons. Some of the most common are incompetence, inability to get along with fellow workers and management, fraud or theft, and downsizing of the labor force.

Let's concentrate on "downsizing of the labor force". We are in a time of bloated government, and the general public and Republican Party generally want a reduction in government size. Government has employed people. If we are to have a smaller government, it is obvious that we have to have a "downsizing of the government labor force". Perhaps more crudely, we can say we need to "fire" government people. If "firing" is so horrendous to Rick Perry and the general run of Republican presidential candidates, we are obviously on a path of not achieving our objective of reduced government size. This will then lead to continued high government expenditures, as those employees find ways to spend money as they have in the past.

If there is any hope for a reduction in government size, all of the presidential candidates will need to do an about-face and recognize that a downsizing of the government labor force will be necessary and this means "firing".