Why Public Services go away in a Recession

From services provided at the taxpayers' expense such as bus service, other public transit, and other things are either going away or getting more expensive, bridge fare, college tuition right at the time when a recession is hurting those who need those services the most. Why? The main reason is I think that these functions are accounted as cost centers and the people who run them think like business people.

Of course that means that they are forced to make cuts, but protect that core of their organization even if it means that most of their client base can no longer afford to use them.

I think that experience managing a business is a disqualification for public service, that no one who is used to thinking like a business person is suitable for serve that citizens. When a candidate for even the smallest public job puts entrepaneur or business on their resume, I begin to look at the other candidates.

Conversely, private business cannot fill the gaps created if government programs were to go away. People would be left to starve, or be denied things they need.

Government does certain large-scale jobs better than private enterprise.  When the payback is long-term or very risky, or the scale large, government does better. Where efficient results and immediate return are desired private business does generally better, although the risk is not necessarily less and the efficiency is not necessarily better. The sources of ineffectiveness are just different. To make government run like business and to have to follow the forces of the cycle in private business is why government services are collapsing just as they are needed most. We have the naive populism of Libertarains and Republicans to thank for cut and run in the business community and the the government just when we need them.

I do not believe that much reduced government is better, and that "freedom" consists of full exposure and responsibility to market forces. In fact markets are not free or rational, ever, and that the dream of Libertarians in particular is naive.