The libertarian Reason Magazine has a — shall we say — provocative article online, entitled “Class War: How public servants become our masters.” It raises some valid points about problems associated with public-sector employment: The impending “pension bomb,” for example, is a serious threat to the finances of many state and local governments. But I think the author, Steven Greenhut, makes a couple of questionable propositions about the federal government.
Monthly Archives: January, 2010
I wanted to pass along the links the State Department posted instructing the public on how to provide assistance to the victims of yesterday’s devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. State says the fastest way to give financially is to text HAITI to “90999.” A $10 donation will automatically go to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts. The charge will show up on your cell phone bill. State also set up a number to call if you need information about loved ones affected by the disaster. The number is 1-888-407-4747. You can find more disaster assistance information from the…
Nobody can say that the Government Printing Office lacks a sense of humor. After FedLine blogged White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ joke yesterday about sending the federal budget to Kinko’s — now called FedEx Office — GPO today said it will send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card. Technically, it’s a GPOExpress card. Those cards allow federal employees to place a small-scale printing order at any FedEx Office branch and net the government up to 70 percent off of the cost. Public Printer Bob Tapella, who runs the agency, said GPOExpress has helped feds place more than 40,000 printing orders since…
Here’s an update on Monday’s story on U.S. Postal Service executive Robert Bernstock and the three sole-source contracts he awarded to people he worked with in the private sector: Agency spokesman Gerry McKiernan said yesterday that the Postal Service’s general counsel, Mary Anne Gibbons has finished reviewing the contracts and “determined that the procurement process was followed in securing these contracts.” Gibbons began reviewing the contracts last week in response to Federal Times inquiries.
Ronald Sanders, chief human capital officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is leaving his position. The ODNI announced his departure yesterday, but spokeswoman Vanee Vines said the office would not answer any other questions until Thursday, when Sanders will speak to reporters. Sanders joined the ODNI in 2005, and began working on a pay-for-performance system for all 16 intelligence agencies in the government. But the Defense authorization bill Congress passed last year put those plans on hold, at least until the end of 2010. Sanders also pushed intelligence workers to spend some time working at other agencies,…
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared to announce a new outsourcing initiative at today’s press conference: MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into details and specifics on a budget that will be released at a later day. Q: It’s at the printers? MR. GIBBS: And when it comes back from Kinko’s, we’ll be able to talk about it. It’s not really at Kinko’s, though, I was just — go ahead. That sound you just heard was the Government Printing Office having a collective heart attack. Who knows what would happen to them if the White House actually started sending an intern down…
In case you haven’t heard, White House budget director Peter Orszag’s home life just got a lot more complicated. For the appropriate — and always tasteful — analysis on Orszag’s “magnetic machismo,” we turn it over to Jon Stewart and his crack staff at the Daily Show. [HTML1]
President Obama’s appointment of the first openly transgender person to a political post became a punch line on David Letterman’s late night talk show, and a leading gay rights group has come out swinging. Amanda Simpson began her new job Tuesday as senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, where she will monitor the exports of U.S. weapons technology. Simpson, who has worked in the aerospace and defense industry for 30 years, is the first openly transgender person to receive a presidential appointment, the Human Rights Campaign said. She was born a male and began her transition to…
Steven Kempf is the new deputy commissioner for the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service, FedLine has learned. Kempf, who most recently served as the assistant commissioner for the FAS Office of Acquisition Management, replaces Tyree Varnado, who recently retired. Kempf will continue to serve as assistant commissioner of FAS’s office of acquisition management until a replacement is named. Kempf joined GSA in 1992. FAS sells more than $53 billion worth of goods and services to federal agencies each year.
The General Services Administration’s chief of staff, Danielle Germain, has resigned her post effective today, Federal News Radio reports. Germain told the radio station: We all know that they have been in a period of transition for the last two years and considering the length of time it is taking to get a permanent Administrator, I have decided to take advantage of another opportunity. So apparently the hold Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., has placed on Martha Johnson’s confirmation to lead GSA has claimed a bystander and opened another void in GSA leadership. In the last two weeks, the agency got…