Can We Handle the Truth?

In the hit film “A Few Good Men” starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, Nicholson’s character screams out the memorable phrase while being questioned in court, “You can’t handle the truth.” The ongoing health insurance squabble, alarm bells surrounding public sector budgets and the constant political food fight brought those words to mind for me this week. The only way to find out if we can really handle the truth is for us to consistently hear the truth from business leaders and political types and I don’t think the truth-meter needle is moving often enough right now.

I want to say two things here to clarify my blog writings. My passionate interest is in small to mid-sized businesses and how entrepreneurial thinking can help all of us. I really do believe that our lives will be better if we run them on sound business principles. Political rhetoric is of no real interest to me and I don’t write with a political party preference. Both major parties have done some good things over the last 60 years for the long term health of our country as well as making some pathetically boneheaded and harmful moves. My questions regarding political moves are just about the same as I’d ask of any business owner. They are: What is the goal? Are your strategies grounded in logic? How do the finances work out?

For example, the overly discussed, dissected and vilified health insurance reform legislation means one primary thing to me; politicians are demonstrating either a lack of knowledge or contempt for basic economic realities. We now have another underfunded entitlement program joining others that have the words social or medi as part of their names. The truth is that the money will run out and that will mean; cutting entitlements, asking for more money or printing a lot more money. As the British are fond of saying, it will end in tears.

There is a passage in the bible that says “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." I often supplement that wisdom in my speeches by telling the audience that before showing you that freedom; the truth will first kick your butt!

Here is a lesson in painful truth from newly elected New Jersey governor Chris Christie. His state like California and New York is facing fiscal disaster. Unlike the governors of those other states he seems to be pouring some painful truth into the discussion. He told the legislature that he was impounding $2 billion of the state budget, and cutting spending in 375 state programs to eliminate their $2 billion budget gap. Of course there were howls of unfair and all the comments you’d expect from a choir of vested interests. However he did not take money from public education and didn’t ask for more taxes on property owners which strike me as common sense thinking.

The hardest truth for politicians to speak about is that pensions and benefits are the biggest driver of spiraling spending at all levels of government, which was also a key factor in the death of General Motors and Chrysler. Sound business principles dictated that those companies go through the fire of bankruptcy to be able to shake off some of that smothering burden before being reborn in a slimmed down form. With no disrespect to the many able public servants and government workers, let’s look at some numbers. A New Jersey state employee who retired at age 49 has paid a total of $124,000 toward his pension and health benefits. If he lives to the expected age, he’ll receive a total of $3.8 million in pension and health benefits! Who really wants to pay for this? The naked truth is that this story is repeated hundreds of thousands of times across the country and even the slow learners understand that this model can’t be sustained. I did say that truth will kick your butt before any feeling of freedom flows in.

As a small business owner, I get the good and bad news weekly if not daily. In my world, truth can’t be obscured for very long. Even in what used to be America’s largest corporation, General Motors, suspended truth eventually won the battle and imposed it’s will on the fate of that iconic company. Some years ago, a tough old real estate developer said to me “you have to lay a solid foundation under whatever you do because gravity always wins and brings you back down to earth.”

Is this a doom and gloom prediction? I don’t think so. Sound business principles can be applied at any time as long as we are willing to accept truth and work through the resulting pain. Anyone who has kicked an addiction can attest to that. I believe that the human spirit is indomitable and that the true American foundation in capitalism is solid. We just have to be true to it.

Since my business is built around media, I often muse on what role all media plays in diverting American’s from dealing with the truth. Another motion picture, “Network” written by the legendary Paddy Chayefsky was prophetic on the subject in 1976. The lead character is fictional network anchorman Howard Beal. He has some choice words regarding truth. “Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Television is a God*****d amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story-tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom killing business! So, if you want truth go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth. But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear.”

Whether we can handle it or not, it is time for a major dose of truth.