Ballmer’s Brilliant Business Idea

What if we viewed the US federal government budget the same way we view and manage our own budgets? Where are revenues coming from, and where does the money go? We have plenty of partisan politicians and television pundits telling us whom to blame for this and that, but what about the big picture?

Politicians are in constant reelection mode and usually walk the party line. The media wants ratings which translate into advertising dollars and will chase the stories or sound bites of the moment. They feed the fire that drives the rage that divides. What if we stopped watching the side show and looked at the facts? Our national debt is over $20 trillion and growing annually because we continue to operate in the red on a daily basis. It is foolish to believe that can go on indefinitely.

Publicly-traded corporations report their financials both quarterly and in annual reports that detail exactly how the business performed. We see audited numbers for the balance sheet and income statements. We see cash flows and exactly where the revenues came from, and also where the expenses went. As investors we get factual information as to how that company has done in the past quarter or year and a commentary on how the executive team of that corporation feels they will do in the future. We have the facts of what has happened followed up with the opinions of what will happen. Armed with these facts, analysts and investors form their own opinions and act accordingly. The key here is that we all start with the same facts. The problem with the government budget is that we never get all the facts. We get one side presenting one set of numbers and the other side a different set. Citizens have no idea whom to believe. This has gone on so long that we have become numb to it all. A fact is a fact. There can’t be two sets of conflicting facts on the same issue. How can we have intelligent debates if we can’t even get the facts right? Let’s face it. We have a somewhat limited amount of revenue that we can collect as a nation and our spending has to be constrained by that figure. If we can’t even agree on how much we are collecting and spending, how can we have an intelligent conversation about the best use of our resources for the greater good of our country?

Enter Steve Ballmer. Steve graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a B.A. in applied mathematics and economics in 1977. He spent his entire career at Microsoft, working his way up and served as CEO from January 2000 until February of 2014. In 2016, he was ranked as the 22nd richest man in the world. It’s probably safe to say he is a brilliant man who knows a thing or two about business and numbers. His latest endeavor is usafacts.org. The site is a must-read to learn where our government gets money and where it is spent. He did it the right way. He asked the question, “what if the government reported numbers like a business?" He made it his mission to compile all the data and put it online in an easy to read and understand format. There is no commentary or opinion, just the facts. The site gets all information from government agency reports. It is presented in a way that is easy to understand, and, to their credit, they don’t give opinions. If we want to have an intelligent conversation about the future of our country, we must look at the facts first. If we can do that, maybe we can finally move forward, end gridlock, and make the difficult decisions that face our country.