GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain frequently asserts that finding a solution to any problem begins with identifying the actual problem. That may seem obvious, but considering the mess that most politicians have caused, Cain's advice may not be so obvious after all.

State Budget Solutions President Bob Williams also believes in identifying the correct problem so that the work that needs to be done actually gets done. It doesn't help anyone to work on the air conditioner if it's the brakes that are the problem.

Bob Williams' now famous report began with one simple observation: the conventional budgeting process allows legislators to "enable" agencies and programs that might be outdated, flawed, or undesirable to continue unabated. In conventional budgeting, legislators focus on "inputs" rather than outcomes. An input is simply the dollar amount needed to continue funding an agency or program at its current level. They usually take a program's current funding and expenses, adjust for inflation, add in some new clients and initiatives, and presto! They have a new baseline budget from which to continue building. With these observations, Bob Williams correctly identified the underlying cause of increasingly bloated state budgets and the deficits that follow.

Think of it this way. The budget is an iceberg, with decades of old funding sitting beneath the surface, never seen, completely ignored. Meanwhile, debates rage over the teeny, tiny little portion of the iceberg that is visible above the water.

So, if the problem is the habit of focusing on inputs, the solution is to focus on outcomes. Focusing on outcomes simply means scrapping the old budget and designing a budget based on priorities and performance. Again, it seems obvious to prioritize the money that is available to spend, and assess whether or not agencies and programs are achieving desired results (i.e. outcomes!).

This is what we call Priority- or Reality-Based Budgeting. It is quite the battle to convince legislators who like the old system of freely spending other people's money to switch to this system, but once in a while it happens, and when it does, the results are amazing.

All of this is to say, it's about time that members of the US Congress began talking about prioritization and outcomes at the federal level as well. There are very few Congressmen willing to take on the entrenched system of "baseline budgeting" and the lack of assessments of programs or agencies. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is one of those Congressmen. There is also a nationally known think tank, the Heritage Foundation, that has just released a policy prescription titled Saving the American Dream, in which they espouse the basic notion of prioritization. The fact is that many Congressmen get a lot of their policy ideas from places like the Heritage Foundation, and since they are now promoting the ideas of Bob Williams, that's a good thing.

Based on their American Dream plan, it seems like the Heritage Foundation may have been listening to Herman Cain or Bob Williams, understanding that the first step toward a solution is to figure out the nature of the problem:

The underlying problem that it addresses is simple: The government is doing things it should not be doing and spending far more than we can afford to pay or should be paying. It is time to start moving decisively toward a federal government that is limited and carries out its appropriate function.