"Beware the Ides of March" - Risk, Responsibility and Renewal The 15th day of March was considered an auspicious day on the Roman calendar in 44 BC until a soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar: "Beware the Ides of March”. A few days later, a group of Roman senators successfully carried out a conspiracy against their dictator. That first "Ides" created abrupt change, setting off repercussions through the remaining years of the world's first great empire.

Into the 21st Century: Fiscal 2010 and a $3.6 TRILLION Budget
The 21st century version of the Ides of March might be the annual Federal Budget. Despite President Obama's valid pledge to "break from a troubled past", the projection is a budget for the 2010 fiscal year of $1 - $3.6 Trillion, with a potential deficit of $750 billion.

President Obama is taking high, but necessary risks. For healthcare, a $630 billion reserve fund paid, in part, by reducing Medicare overpayments to private insurers by reducing drug rebates to manufacturers. On the good side, there will be $2,500 tax credits for college education and a 2.9 % pay raise to all in current military service. On the "tough" side, there are tax increases for families and owners of small businesses whose income is solid but rapidly consumed by home mortgages and college education costs. As founder of the Wills & Associates public affairs consulting firm in 1980, I know that had it not been for the Reagan drop in personal income and business taxes, the difficulties for this entrepreneur to succeed during those early years would have been even more challenging!

Thirty years ago, the government issued what the Washington Post described as a "gloomy prognosis in its ability to finance new initiatives." The Office of Management & Budget (then the "Budget Bureau") sent forth a mere $200.8 billion dollars projection, with a $1.3 billion surplus. That budget signing by President Nixon five years before Watergate is depicted in a photo that includes me looking glum with Robert Mayo, then Budget Bureau Director and my boss during a White House Fellowship when I was assigned to that agency. Mayo's instructions to the assistant directors and me: “Look appropriately solemn as the President signs". Our visual expressions matched the next day's Washington Post description of the 1971 fiscal year budget, "austere".




In Maryland, the political leadership is, as usual, not completely candid. The weekly Montgomery Gazette columns of the two "B's", Barry Rascovar and Blair Lee, describe it best. Rascovar: "Thanks to the Obama stimulus package, the conquering hero O'Malley does not have to make any job or State aid to school cuts. His immediate Maryland budget problems have disappeared -- and State employee unions will smile upon and support the smiling occupant of the State House". Barry R. concludes: " It is not surprising O'Malley is taking a head-in-the-sand approach. Let's ignore future fiscal problems as long as we can". Lee: "Instead of running scared, Maryland's lawmakers are basking in the stimulus package's glow.... where does all this funny money come from?” (The answer is, it comes from debt.)

A business approach to this problem is that we must realize that State tax revenues are not likely to rebound fast enough to offset the sudden loss of stimulus funds. O'Malley & Co. had better start applying business practices to government and prepare for this loss, sooner than later. I agree with columnist David Brooks that the Obama budget has a plus in proposing more of a pay-as-you-go approach and serious efforts to pay for at least half of health care reform. But don't consider health care needs solved by relying on bureaucratic management. Despite the aggressiveness of medical trial lawyers, it is still the doctors that are at the core of healthcare solutions.

Role Models for Small Business
In Maryland, the real work gets done by the entrepreneur of small business. Two interesting role models for me are George Delaplaine and Brad Wills, who get the work done as government promises and propounders.

George Delaplaine of The Frederick News-Post and Great Southern Enterprises
A leader in Frederick and western Maryland for nearly 60 years, George and I crossed paths in those early years when Maryland government was going through scandals of state and local government. Spiro Agnew was Governor, Dale Anderson and Joe Alton were county executives in and out of payoffs and payouts. It was an era of savings & loan scandals, wheeling & dealing in the Legislature and local government offices.

What I have found in George Delaplaine is "straight talk". He cuts through the B.S. and gets to the point with both wisdom and wit. From his days as Publisher and Editor of the Frederick News-Post to expansion to cable television as founder of Great Southern Communications, George carried on a mission of adventure.

I feel fortunate to have been able to share the entrepreneurial spirit with George in professionally assisting with the process from print to electronic communications; and in co-chairing on the Maryland Board with his colleague Marlene Young, vice-president of GS Communications. Together we secured funding for Maryland’s most successfully run magazine, “Maryland Life” and raised awareness to promote our Free State tourist, historic, and recreational assets.

One of my favorite reads is a monthly newsletter from George that begins "Dear Colleagues, Friends and Relatives". This month's March 2009 commentary celebrates the "Edison-Ford Connection" that began when Henry Ford, future inventor of the automobile assembly line, worked in the laboratory of the electricity genius, Thomas Edison. Just four months ago, the theme of George's letter was "2008: A Centennial Year for Transportation", 100 years since October 1, 1908, when the Model T went on sale as a mass product. In that same month, the steel mills of the Washington-Frederick-Gettysburg Railroad linked Frederick with Thurmont, and the Thurmont extension electrified the next year, 1911.

Brad Wills
This second role model is younger than either of the two Georges. My son Brad joined Wills & Associates (W&A) in the 20th century's last decade. Cutting to the core of change, Brad encouraged our consulting firm to venture into the technology era with tech and telecom companies. In the current "down economy", Brad's services are directed towards hands on assistance to these companies that face competitive challenges in the 21st century business environment. In competition, with other tech firms, there is an increased need for media awareness of what company X does as opposed to its competition.

When Brad and I join together on issues, the word "teamwork" best describes the way in which this father-son combination operates. Brad has been President and CEO since 2004 and it really works.

A recent example of that teamwork was one year ago when Brad helped a newly established small computer services coalition climb the legislative mountain to defeat a computer services sales tax put together in a special session's darkest room, a tax that would have driven many small computer service firm owners out of Maryland. Now Brad continues this entrepreneurial drive in assisting "The Tech Council of Maryland" with its work in advancing the mission of the tech services industry.

Bottom line for this year's "Ides of March":
In good times and bad, results come from private sector action. As big budgets come and go, the private sector and small business are the cutting edge. As citizens, we have a duty to focus on how the President's initiatives can be implemented and improved for results - not rhetoric.  4:28 PM •