I’m at an event on economic stimulus and financial regulation sponsored by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The group is projecting a staggering $1 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009, driven largely by the cost of reviving the slumping economy: bailouts for financial firms, diminished tax returns and an economic stimulus package. The irony is that, while government spending as a whole is skyrocketing, individual agency budgets may not see that much of an increase. That’s because much of the new spending is either handed out directly in a stimulus package — to states, businesses and taxpayers —…
Browsing: Agencies
With his approval ratings at historic lows and the nation’s focus shifting to the incoming Obama administration, President Bush has a tough time garnering much attention these days. But hundreds of career and political employees who work at the Executive Office of the President gave Bush a rousing reception yesterday on the South Lawn of the White House. Flanked by his Cabinet and joined by First Lady Laura Bush, Vice President Cheney and Cheney’s wife Lynne, Bush congratulated Barack Obama for winning the election and urged federal employees to make the transition to a new administration as smooth as possible. Joking about his graying hair and First…
Congress’ watchdog arm, the Government Accountability Office, put out a list today of the 13 most urgent issues facing President-elect Barack Obama and the incoming Congress. The list includes such no-brainers as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, oversight of the financial market, and protecting the homeland. But it also includes a few head-scratchers — transitioning to digital television and carrying out the 2010 Census, to name two — that are even more curious when you consider what didn’t make GAO’s cut. Things like securing energy independence, reforming Medicare and Social Security, and providing health care to all Americans. So what gives? Chris…
Tomorrow the transition starts. But the Bush Administration isn’t over yet. It is still plugging away on its initiatives, as evidenced by the fact the Office of Management and Budget posted the latest President’s Management Agenda scorecard on Nov. 3. The stoplight-style scorecard, which may or may not survive transition to the new president, has an abundance of green these days, indicating success in achieving President Bush’s management priorities. According to the scorecard, agencies did very well at achieving their human capital and performance improvement goals this quarter. Commercial services management, e-gov, and financial performance were a bit tougher for…
The Air Force is looking to employ some live birds–falcons to be precise– to protect its metal ones, the Washington Post reported today. The enemy: other birds. Apparently, small birds, like songbirds, pigeons or Magpies, fly in the vicinity of U.S. military aircraft at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, posing a hazard that they’ll be ingested in the planes’ engines and disable them. The Post reports 125 “bird strikes” in the last year, up from 78 the year before. So far, other traditional means of bird control, such as firing shotguns, have not worked. If the military awards the contract,…
A curious memo may halt spending on many earmarks intended for federal agencies. OMB Director Jim Nussle issued a memo Oct. 23 detailing conditions that must be met for agencies to spend earmarks embedded in the fiscal year 2009 continuing resolution, which also contains the Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs appropriations. In order for an agency to allocate funding for an earmark, the earmark must meet three conditions. They are: 1. It must have been in the FY 2008 appropriations bill; 2. It must continue in 2009 and beyond (no one-time, non-recurring projects or grants); and 3. The affected…
Can’t find a worthy charity in the Combined Federal Campaign? Send a check to the Scott Bloch Legal Defense Trust! (Donations are not tax-deductible, sorry.) The recently-retired special counsel is looking for help to defray his mounting legal costs. Bloch was forced out of office last week, an event that capped years of controversy surrounding his tenure, but still faces an ongoing grand jury investigation. The Web site includes praise for Bloch from a number of conservative luminaries, including Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes, Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich, and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) Noticeably absent is any praise…
…is now $864 billion according to a Congressional Research Service report posted on the blog Secrecy News. That’s just a scant $164 billion more than the government is planning to spend to bailout Wall Street. To be fair, it did take the Defense Department 8 years to get to that level of spending. The CRS figure includes appropriations and supplementals made between fiscal years 2001 and 2009. Three-quarters of the war spending, about $657 billion, funded the war in Iraq. Another fifth, $173 billion, went to the war in Afghanistan. And $28 billion enhanced security at military bases. But what…
That’s the title of Porker of the Month, awarded by Citizens Against Government Waste to the government official they deemed has most egregiously wasted taxpayer money in the past month. October’s Porker of the Month is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, who spent $355,000 to sponsor a NASCAR driver to promote the upcoming digital television transition. In a press release, the organization said the spending is especially wasteful considering the FCC has flooded television channels with paid advertisements for months in advance of the February 2009 switch. “This doesn’t seem like the most efficient use of resources,†said FCC…
It’s Halloween on Friday and as if on cue the Defense Department has released a new acquisition regulation about the use of humans in research contracts. Maybe it’s just me, but government and human testing sounds like the makings of a horror flick or thriller. OK, so the rule is probably not that scary. In fact, the rule is aimed at enhancing protections for human guinea pigs by ensuring contracts contain a clause mandating researchers to follow a stringent set of human research rules, such as obtaining informed consent from participants and receiving approval from a review board. For the curious…