Romney's VP Should Be FedEx's Fred Smith

If you are Romney, who do you need as the hatchet-man to hand out pink slips to all of these millions of paper-shufflers? Well, it's not going to be a politician.

Even Ron Paul says that he will only cut $1 trillion in spending in his first year as president. That would only bring us back to federal spending as it was in 2007. If you want to go back to Bill Clinton 1997, you have to cut $2 trillion per year. If you want to go back JFK's 1962 budget, you have to cut over $3.5 trillion per year.

No, Romney's VP must be a strong private-sector CEO who will have no compunction about firing large numbers of nonproductive and counter-productive paper-pushers.

2. Cut red tape. Nobody in America today has any clue what the laws are. You need permits to start a business or build something. God help you if you want to hire someone. We are mired in red tape.

Most politicians are completely oblivious to this, because they essentially don't live under the laws they serve, because they don't run companies. Congress and state politicians also don't need to make a profit.

So the answer to the second requirement for a Romney VP is the same as the first: It must be a private-sector CEO, who will understand the importance of abolishing red tape.

The Short List

Who will it be? Had Jack Welch been 10 years younger, he would seem like a shoe-in. There are probably hundreds of outstanding suggestions. I would like to hear the reader's suggestions as to which businessman would be a suitable VP for Romney.

In the meantime, the choice of FedEx Founder and CEO Fred Smith would be ideal. If you have not read his resume, you should. It will also make you sweat, and be ready for a nap after.

Fred Smith attended Yale together with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former President George W. Bush in the 1960s. There, he wrote a paper on how to organize an overnight delivery service using the logistics capabilities of this upcoming thing called a "computer." After Yale, Smith performed two tours in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Purple Hearts.

Returning from Vietnam, Smith founded FedEx, which has now grown into the leading company in its field, with a market cap approaching $30 billion and annual sales of a similar $30 billion number. His net worth is at least around $2 billion, easily trumping Mitt Romney's rumored $200 million net worth. One wonders who really should be on top of the ticket.