Balancing the budget is the decisive principle that will enable genuine reform of the federal government. Americans will accept substantial changes if they lead to a balanced budget, lower interest rates, lower taxes, a healthier economy, and increased jobs and take-home pay.

We know balancing the budget is achievable because House Republicans successfully led the effort in the 1990s. That initiative resulted in the only four consecutive balanced budgets in the last 100 years.

Practically, reality-based principles can help make balancing the budget achievable again. One crucial principle is the role of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as a scoring mechanism defining the parameters of Congressional success.

Principles are guidelines that can help us determine the best way to think and act in both our personal and professional lives. They should instruct us but not control us. We should be dedicated to the ideals attached to a principle, not the words that describe it. Principles are never accurate all the time, including the one I just stated. Absolutes should always be avoided, including my statement about absolutes.

For many years, I have offered the following two principles in my speeches, books, and weekly columns: “Never make a decision until you have to” and “Not making a decision is a decision.”

One principle encourages us to delay all decisions, while the other encourages us to decide now. Principles are truths that have been given to us by wise people. They have to be used with judgment and discretion. With respect to when we should make a decision, we can embrace the principle that we will not make a final decision until we are forced to do so, as we are constantly gaining more information and perspective. On the other hand, we cannot delay the decision beyond the point and time when our options begin to diminish or even disappear.

This coming school year marks our final year to pay college expenses for our five kids. My greatest achievement as a Tulsa based financial planner is getting our kids through college without school loans!

Yet for multitudes of families, college has become more and more out of reach because of skyrocketing costs. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the nation’s best-known public universities have been on a massive spending spree the past two decades and have passed the bill along to students and their families.

Unfortunately, the Journal reports that the University of Oklahoma “hit students with some of the biggest tuition increases, while spending millions on projects including acquiring and renovating a 32,000 square foot Italian monastery for its study-abroad program.”