To Renew America: on Budget & Economy

Focus on customers; use employee knowledge

Deming’s name is not familiar to most Americans. But he embodies so many of the traits of the American character that he deserves a place in the nation’s mythology. He is already honored in Japan, where the highest annual award bestowed upon a Japanese company each year if the Deming Award for Quality. Although Deming’s work defies any easy summary, his teachings generally focus around four basic points:
1. The customer should be the focus of any business.
2. Systems, rather than individuals, should be the focus of improving production.
3. There has to be a theory or hypothesis before each change or action. Prediction is the key to management.
4. Every employee can be a key player in improving a process or product. Employees should be treated as knowledgeable contributors to their activities.

Balancing budget is morally AND financially right

Let me start with the morality of balancing the budget. Historically, it has always been self-evident in America that each generation had the obligation to live within its means. A major war was a legitimate excuse for massive borrowing. But in peacetime, there has been a general rule that each generation would live within its means. As a result, our children would not be stuck with the task of paying off someone else's debt.

The principle was that we would pay off the mortgage and leave the farm to our children. Only in the last generation has this bias toward the future been reversed. Now we are borrowing against the farm to pay today's living expenses and leaving our children to pay off that debt.