Economy
As Local Governments Shrink, Private Consultants Reap Rewards
Meet the high-paid experts who are pitching our cities and states on how to save money.
"I would probably bring in McKinsey," Mitt Romney once told the Wall Street Journal editorial board, explaining how he might, should he win in November, hire management consultants to help shape a presidential cabinet.
Romney, a devotee of corporate culture who began his career at the Boston Consulting Group, promises to transfer that technocratic ethos and private-sector reverence to the Oval Office. Indeed, management consulting firms are already marketing themselves to state and municipal governments as professionals with the necessary business savvy to help manage a downsizing austerity state.