If everything is on the table, a hackneyed term delivered by politicians from both parties that Americans constantly hear from the White House to the Congress, was called Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB), and implemented as a law,  this nation might very well be further along in dealing with its deficit and out of control spending.

As a business grows, much like a nation, there comes a time when you must examine your expenditures as compared to your income.  Obviously, you can’t spend more than what’s coming in, which the US doesn’t seem to comprehend.

The reason: we have the luxury of  just printing more money.  This will come to a screeching halt when the dollar is worth monopoly money in a global market.

This examination most often happens as companies grow as we said nations do, and there must be some due diligence from within including departments, personal and budgets because they tend to increase exponentially as department heads protect their turf, whether necessary or not.

And often this occurs without careful scrutiny as to why and whether these increases are necessary.

There is an interesting paradox here.  As a former department head in a major corporation I know that the psychology that takes place within the organization that says if you didn’t spend what you budgeted last year you don’t deserve an increase in budget for the next year. 

Therefore, you don’t conserve the dollars you budgeted this year due to efficient management because you will be penalized next year when you might need more to operate, based upon your projections of what you expect to happen.

Rather than saying ‘everything is on the table’ the nation should be moving to a Zero Based Budget, which is implemented more often than not in corporate enterprises.  If this were not true corporations would not be sitting on the trillions they are based upon their assessment of the economy and the policies of this administration.

But, the leader of our nation, President Obama, prior to entering the Oval office, has never run a business.  He was a community organizer, you know, much like setting up Occupy Wall Street, for which he has expressed empathy for its cause.

As it is explained by many businesses and on the internet and many other sources, ZBB is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period.

It starts from a zero base, and every function within an organization – and I am suggesting a nation such as the US – is analyzed for its needs and costs.

Budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether the budget is higher or lower than the previous one.

It is a rather simple process of income v expenditures and as anyone that runs a household knows, you can’t spend more than what you have.

It’s not rocket science.

But it appears to be to Obama.  Perhaps he should go back to school to learn about ZBB, but I don’t think this would work because it would involve something called common sense and Obama is more interested in rhetoric, politics and his reelection.