Have you ever brought your children to the store and had to fend off one request after another to buy something? One effective way to make them stop, and teach them a lesson, is to tell them they can have what they want – as long as they pay for it themselves.

You can see the wheels turn behind their eyes as they’re confronted with the goodies’ cost versus their limited resources. What seemed so important when someone else was paying for it no longer is worth emptying their own piggy bank.

Apparently, many in Washington have never taken their children shopping. Or maybe their parents never took them. Continue reading →

Let’s say you served on a company’s board of directors, and its by-laws required the president to give a periodic report. And let’s say your company was losing money – in fact, a lot of it, and had been for a long time. It’s deeply in debt with no real plan to get out. Worst of all, the company’s structure and culture virtually assure the debt will continue growing until someday its consequences are severe.

The report would have to cover a lot of things. But shouldn’t at least part of it include an honest appraisal of the company’s rising red ink along with a specific plan of action?

That’s what was wrong with President Trump’s State of the Union address, and most of the ones given by previous presidents. The speech stretched for nearly an hour and 21 minutes from the first word to last. It was not a bad speech. But, in all that time, Trump didn’t even mention the national debt. For the record, it’s now almost $20.5 trillion, or more than $62,600 for every American man, woman and child. Continue reading →

So now yet another manufactured crisis has ended, and we’ll see if we have another one by Feb. 8.

Here’s how the process should work: Congress should prepare a budget once a year – once – that spells out the nation’s taxing and spending priorities, and then it should make sure its numbers add up. Instead, it lurches from one unnecessary deadline to another, putting off the hard choices and adding debt. This past week’s was the 113th time since 1998 that Congress has passed a temporary funding measure, and this one’s tax cuts will add $31 billion to the deficit – about $100 for every American.

Both sides are at fault for Washington’s toxic atmosphere, but Senate Democrats are mostly to blame for this particular shutdown. They filibustered the funding bill in order to gain concessions for the 700,000 young people brought to America illegally as children – the beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. In the end, all they got in return was a promise that the issue will be debated in the Senate, which was probably going to happen anyway. Continue reading →

Uncle Sam is now $20.5 trillion in debt, or about $62,700 for every American man, woman and child. This year, Arkansas’ congressmen, particularly Rep. Steve Womack, have an outsized influence regarding how quickly that debt grows.

Let’s play a little Q and A to explain why.

Q. What’s the latest?

A. The news this week is that Rep. Steve Womack, who represents Northwest Arkansas’ 3rd District, now chairs the House Budget Committee. That means, theoretically at least, he’ll play a leading role in creating the framework for how the government collects and spends your money. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner

© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s say you’re changing jobs, leaving one that was relatively secure for one with an uncertain future. You think it’s possible you’ll make more money, but it’s likely you’ll make less. What would you do beforehand?

You probably should carefully determine what your spending patterns are, and then adjust downward until they match your most likely income. You’d look for areas of waste first, followed by luxuries. But then you might also have to cut some of the more important stuff.

Once you’d done that, then, one last time, you’d carefully consider if changing jobs is really the wisest move. And then if it’s still a go, you would do all you could to find additional revenues.

And if you did all that, you would be doing the opposite of what Congress is doing. Continue reading →