Register to Vote: Rock the Vote, powered by Credo Mobile

HOME

ABOUT US

OUR ISSUES

Information & Access

Nonprofit Advocacy

Regulatory Policy


PRESS ROOM

ACTION CENTER

PUBLICATIONS

THE WATCHER

OUR BLOGS


SIGN UP

Receive news, updates, and alerts!

DONATE

Help support our work


OTHER SITES

FedSpending.org

RTK NET

NPAction

Working Group on Community Right-to-Know

Citizens for Sensible Safeguards

Open the Government

OMB Watch Logo

Demanding a federal budget that is fair, responsible, and meets our nation's priorities

Home :  Federal Budget & Tax : 
Federal Budget & Tax:      News     Blog     Background    



Thursday, May 15, 2008

Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA.

Now I've come across some interesting spin in Washington in my time here, but I think this one has to take the cake. There are too many strange, misleading, and frustratingly vague statements (e.g. "Some people who had backed IGs began to have doubts.") in Fox's article to jump into all of them (Beverley Lumpkin over at POGO has a good rundown refuting many of them that is worth reading). But the overall tone of the piece implies that IG offices are a danger to good government and need to be reigned in. This perspective needs to be soundly dismissed.

Fox's main point seems to be that a thirsting for power and arrogance at the IGs office was the main issue at GSA, not any particular issue or problem they were investigating (and there were plenty). Fox's point is mind-numbingly ironic considering many of the actions the IGs office was investigating can not be seen as anything else than a power grab by a pretty arrogant Ms. Doan herself (see strong-arming contracting officers and side-stepping contracting protocols to help friends). Worst of all, Doan's unprecedented actions to attempt to cut the IG office's budget and outsource its contracting oversight responsibilities to, of all places, private contractors, was a deliberate attempt to keep prying eyes away from her attempts to operate on her own outside of federal laws and regulations.

I'm still hopeful, as I think POGO was at first glance, that vague assertions and unsubstantiated ramblings like those contained in Fox's article won't influence anyone (that would be a shame). In these times of poor oversight and significant corruption and incompetence in the federal government, we need strong IG offices more than ever to help develop a more effective and accountable government.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 12:37:26 PM



Monday, May 05, 2008

Prince of Darkness Sheds Light on GOP Secret Decision
Not to Hold an Off-the-Record Vote on, Shhh... Earmarks

And revealed, appropriately enough, in the Sunday edition of Chicago Sun Times by Robert Novak, aka, the Prince of Darkness. Read all about it in House GOP Giving up on Earmark Crackdown:

A recent secret survey of the House Republican minority by the party's whip organization showed 2-1 opposition to imposing a moratorium on earmarks.

House Republican John Boehner, who personally sponsors no earmarks, has indicated the party's position should be based on what GOP House members want. That led to the whip check.

Reformers had contemplated calling for a vote on earmarks by a closed-door session of the House Republican Conference, assuming it would be difficult for many members to vote no. But the lopsided outcome of the whip check dissuaded reformers from requesting a vote.

Don't tell anyone I told you.



Posted by Dana Chasin, 04:40:13 PM



Thursday, May 01, 2008

Op-Ed Dismissive of Contractor Oversight, Calls for More Contractors

WaPo published an op-ed Monday in which former senior Department of Defense officials Dov S. Zakheim and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish (Ret.) note a recent GAO report that finds massive cost and schedule overruns in weapons acquisitions by the Pentagon. The report implicates a degradation of competition between contracting firms resulting in, according to Zajheim and Kadish (ZK, hereafter), "a kind of 'design bureau' competition, similar to what the Soviet Union used."

After complaining about an Air Force tanker project won by EADS, a European defense contractor, ZK conclude that what's really needed to curtail waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting is increased competition in the defense market spurred by an increase in domestic defense firms. Without really explaining why, they also claim that "[m]ore regulations and bureaucratic restrictions on contractors are not the answer."

Although the consolidations helped contractors survive the spending cuts, they now threaten to undermine the industry. That's because many in Congress and at the Pentagon want to impose stricter oversight and controls on weapons manufacturing and development while simultaneously demanding more competition -- driving the system to an immature and evolving "globalized" marketplace.

Here's the thing though: Better oversight and better procurement practices may not "fix the problem," but because of the nature of the defense "market," it may be the government's only tool to increase acquisition value.



Read more...

Posted by Craig Jennings, 11:08:38 AM



Wednesday, April 30, 2008

First Jackson, Now Lurita Doan Falls

The long saga of General Services Administrator Lurita Doan has finally come to an end - the White House fired her yesterday. We have posted extensively on Doan's short tenure at the GSA on this blog, in our press room, and in the Watcher as well. It seemed there just was never enough print space to truly capture all the corrupt, illegal, and unethical behavior of Ms. Doan (also see here, here, here, and here).

My only question at this point is, why was she fired now? It's been 11 months since the independent Office of Special Counsel recommended to President Bush that Doan be fired for blatant violations of the Hatch Act - which prohibits the use of federal resources for partisan political activities. It certainly does seem like strange timing, but I suppose I should stop being surprised by the bizarre actions of this administration.

It is time to say farewell and good luck to Administrator Doan. Thanks, Ms. Doan, for wasting our money, helping out your friends with no-bid contracts, hiding the truth by interfering with oversight investigations, attempting to intimidate an Inspector General's office, violating federal law, keeping us entertained at many congressional hearings with your poor memory and shifty ways, and generally, making life interesting here at this watchdog organization. You certainly weren't dull.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:11:18 AM



Friday, April 18, 2008

Earmarks for Me, But Not for Thee

Hurling invective at earmarks and deriding them all as wasteful "bridges to nowhere," is a popular theme these days. However, as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has recently demonstrated, adopting a pox-on-all-earmarks position can quickly dissolve into a cafeteria-style earmark policy: "I like this earmark and this earmark, but not that one over there."

Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) plan to abolish earmarks from the federal budget would result in the elimination of U.S. funding assistance to Israel. McCain's presidential campaign responded to the finding by saying that, as president, McCain would "ensure America remains committed to the security of Israel, including maintaining America's assistance levels."

...

McCain has already made an exception for the $3 billion in foreign aid to Israel that is cited by the CRS. But he apparently is still willing to cut the rest of the earmarks in the CRS report. According to an analysis by Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Scott Lilly, that CRS report includes assistance to Egypt, Jordan, and Haiti as an earmark. Moreover, it includes funding for military family housing.

The fact is, there is nothing inherently nefarious about funding Congressperson-requested projects—some projects may be more useful, more appreciated, or otherwise "better" than others, but that a Congressperson has asked for it doesn't make it necessarily wasteful. And calling for an outright ban on earmarks will cut spending on programs that not everyone finds offensive - like the Iraq Study Group, for instance. This is not to say that the earmark process is not subject to abuses, however, but rather than prohibiting a particular spending mechanism, it makes more sense to bring the to the process a level scrutiny that will allow Congress and its constituents to debate the merits of these projects.



Posted by Craig Jennings, 05:31:19 PM



Tuesday, April 08, 2008

NYT Quotation of the Day

For the Hard of Ear-ing

No matter what you want to call it, an earmark is an earmark. If Congressional leaders don't believe that soft earmarks are earmarks, then I think that makes the case as to why we need tougher reforms in place. - Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), on pork-barrel spending

But, to be fair, Flake wasn't quoted here about pork-barrel spending. He was quoted about earmarks. If you're interested in the difference -- and if you writers and editors at the Times are listening -- have a look at this, esp. pp. 3-5.



Posted by Dana Chasin, 11:18:30 AM



Thursday, April 03, 2008

Don't Judge Pig Book by its Cover

On the one hand, the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) Pig Book is a useful service providing a full accounting of earmarks adopted by Congress and stuck in the FY 2008 budget. Among the leading fun facts, the FY2008 budget includes :

  • 11,610 earmark projects worth $17.2 billion
  • 337% increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007
  • 30% increase over the $13.2 billion in fiscal year 2007

On the other hand it equates earmark spending with pork and that tars earmarks projects with too broad a brush. A close analysis -- and guess, what, we happen to have one right here! -- reveals a subtler story.

But don't judge the CAGW 2008 Pig Book by its cover...



Posted by Dana Chasin, 05:55:52 PM



Friday, March 21, 2008

Bush Does Battle with Recession, Taking Aim at...
... earmarks ?!

In Gail Collins, the New York Times has a first-rate writer and thinker who brings a fresh perspective to her op-ed pieces and seems to approach issues without any ideological bent, axe to grind, or hobby horse to flog. Less of a luminary perhaps in that stable of regular columnists than a Kristol, Krugman, or Kristof but Collins has a secret weapon the others don't: humor.

Particularly commendable is last weekend's entry, George Speaks, Badly, a critique of President Bush's speech last Friday to the Economic Club of New York.

Now, this was supposed to be where the President goes into the heart of American capitalism to address the serious economic problems that -- that very same day -- would fell one of New York City's most venerable investment houses. The administration has done next to nothing since the talk of recession began about three months ago. The nation's capital and real estate markets had lost trillions of dollars of value. The spotlight was on him. So what did the President have to say?

A lot of folks are waiting to see what Congress intends to do. One thing that's certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money. So I've challenged members of Congress to cut the number of, cost of earmarks in half. I issued an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by the Congress. In other words, Congress has got this habit of just sticking these deals into bills without a vote -- no transparency, no light of day, they just put them in. And by the way, this executive order extends beyond my presidency, so the next President gets to make a decision as to whether or not that executive order stays in effect.

As usual, Collins had les mots justes to say about Bush's remarks:

... this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before.... Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you're going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you're going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.

Lights out. Next?



Posted by Dana Chasin, 04:01:48 PM



Thursday, March 20, 2008

Earmark Requests Shut Down House Web Site

Bill Allison over at the Sunlight Foundation has a great blog up about a report in Roll Call that the House Appropriations committee website was overwhelmed with requests for earmarks shortly before yesterday's deadline. Because the website crashed, the deadline has been extended until next week.

Bill makes the excellent point that instead of a one-year break for earmarking, only to return to the same system in 2009, why not just make the appropriations committee online submission system public, so people can judge for themselves the merits of the requests submitted by their representatives? Sounds like a great idea to me.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 10:35:04 AM



Friday, March 14, 2008

Vota-Round-Up, II: Earmarks Moratorium Loses

A bid by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to ban the practice of earmarking for one year measure failed on a vote of 29-71. The amendment fell on a procedural vote after a point of order, which required 60 votes to waive, was raised against it because it was ruled "non-germane" to the budget resolution.

Presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama all voted in favor of the amendment. Other than Clinton and Obama, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) the only Democrat to support the measure. GOP Senator were split, 26-23.

The House GOP alternative budget resolution, which was defeated, also called for a moratorium on earmarks, removing them from the baseline spending totals for 2009.

CNN story.



Posted by Dana Chasin, 03:03:40 PM



Democrats Pass Budget in House & Senate

The House and Senate successfully passed their versions of the FY 2009 budget resolution yesterday. The House passed their spending outline on a mostly party-line vote 212 - 207 and the Senate passed their version early this morning 51 - 44 (roll call not available yet). Sixteen Democrats in the House opposed the budget along with all Republicans and in the Senate, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) supported the budget, while Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) opposed it.

The House and Senate versions are similar in a number of areas, but the House blueprint is more fiscally responsible - strictly adhering to PAYGO rules by requiring offsets for mandatory spending increases and any additional tax cuts - particularly offsetting changes to the alternative minimum tax. Way to go House of Representatives!

There were tons of amendments in the Senate all through the day and night on key fiscal issues. We'll be dissecting the amendments and votes throughout the day today here on the BudgetBlog. Stay tuned!



Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:25:16 AM



Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Earmarks -- Worse Than You Thought
Did You Know They Threaten U.S. Scientific Greatness?

Neither did I, until I read this write-up by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy:

Research earmarks—in general the assignment of money during the legislative process for use by a specific organization or project—are counter to a merit-based competitive selection process that has been a hallmark of American scientific prowess since the post World War II era. However, over the past 20 years, the number of earmarks has risen dramatically and threatens to undermine a vital process underpinning U.S. scientific greatness. Earmarks signal to potential investigators that there is an acceptable alternative to creating quality research proposals that can pass muster with other highly-qualified scientists or engineers. Such an alternative can be an ineffective use of taxpayer funds. [Emph. added]

Who knew??



Posted by Dana Chasin, 01:14:26 PM



Quotations of the Day

In case it escaped your attention in perusing Craig's blog below, John McMaverick, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, lets slip a surprising sentiment:

... the facts are that I never showed any bias in any way against anybody — except for the taxpayer.

-- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

And, for bipartisan measure: ... the facts are that I never showed any bias in any way against anybody — except for the taxpayer.

.. I hope that senators of good will on both sides of the aisle will step forward and say, 'We have an obligation to our clients, um, to our constituents" [emph. added].

-- Sen. Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)



Posted by Dana Chasin, 12:52:57 PM



Friday, March 07, 2008

Earmark Moratorium: Fiscal Fetishism?
"Tragicomic" Obsession Giving Rise to Political Cannibalism

With the budget resolution action for the week behind us, we are free to turn to attention again to an issue which for two years now has generated discussion and debate so disproportionate to its actual budgetary significance than it's possible we've moved over from mere obsession into the realm of fiscal fetishism: earmarks.

Let us maintain some perspective on the magnitude of the issue. As you know, the federal government spends roughly $3 trillion annually. The amount of that money that is spent pursuant to specific congressional directive at the behest of a single member, i.e., an earmark, is $20 billion at most. Note, by the way, that we are not talking about additional spending amounts, but already-approved amounts -- ban all earmarks and you save not a single penny.

So if we have an earmarks moratorium, for example, we're talking about re-allocating the spending of what portion of the federal budget?

0.7 percent. At most.

OK, now let's check in on the earmarks moratorium debate and see if it makes any sense.

The Wall Street Journal weighs in today with a story suggesting that the earmarks struggle, championed by GOP presummptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), may lay waste to the party in November:

Republicans are facing their most brutal election environment in decades... Earmarks now rank among the bedrock conservative principles [and] diverging from Mr. McCain on earmarks guarantees it will be a defining issue in their re-election races.... Smart opponents will use the split against vulnerable incumbents. Republicans will have to explain why Mr. McCain is wrong to want to shutdown the earmark factory, and their answers will be tragicomic.

Sounds dramatic. Conjures visions of fratricide, cannibalism, and electoral loss. But sanity may yet reign and the party may be spared. The Hill reports that "the idea of imposing either a temporary or a long-term moratorium appears to be off the table, Republicans said Thursday."

No matter -- moratorium proponents are massing on Capitol Hill this morning, armed with petitions containing 100,000 signatures, staging a rally and press conference and apparently "Grassfire" will be there!

Spectators, if there are any, will be excused for their confusion. Ordinary citizens dismiss the spectacle of a congressional minority, powerless, issue-less, bored by its own impotence, and yet seized of its own importance. Regular people from the heartland, surveying the scene, might agree with this teacher, quoted in today's Chicago Tribune:

What's needed isn't a ban on earmarks but a more sensible way to evaluate and prioritize projects.


Posted by Dana Chasin, 10:57:55 AM



Thursday, March 06, 2008

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- Mar. 6, 2008

The House budget resolution, legislation and statements

  • Legislation
  • Statements

The Senate budget resolution, legislation and statements
  • Legislation
  • Statements

Taxes -- House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano (D-NY) and committee member Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) will continue their efforts to kill the IRS private tax collection program through fiscal 2009 appropriations.

Contracting -- Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) role in killing an Air Force deal with Boeing several years ago resurfaces as the row over the Air Forces's decision to contract with Airbus's parent, EADS, for a fleet of new tanker planes



Posted by Craig Jennings, 09:51:43 AM




Latest Entries by Theme

All Themes

Appropriations & Spending

Federal Tax Policy

Income/Wealth Inequality

Budget Projections

Government Performance

Estate Tax

State Fiscal Policy

Watcher

Entitlements

Budget Process

Debt & Deficit

Oversight & Enforcement

Transparency

Privatization

Contact Us

Most Recent Entries for Federal Budget & Tax

Overseas Contractor Insurance Companies Bilking Taxpayers

Unions Boost Wages of Lowest-Income Workers the Most

GI Bill Surtax Would Affect 0.3% of All Taxpayers

TPC Testimony Before Senate Finance Committee

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 16, 2008

War Supplemental Update: War Funding Bill Lacks War Funding Provision

Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

An Equal Opportunity Crisis

GovExec Maps Out the Six Degrees of OSG Bloch

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 15, 2008

Archived Entries for Transparency

May

April

March

February

January

December, 2007

November, 2007

October, 2007

September, 2007

August, 2007

July, 2007

June, 2007

May, 2007

April, 2007

March, 2007

February, 2007

January, 2007

December, 2006

November, 2006

October, 2006

September, 2006

August, 2006

July, 2006

June, 2006

May, 2006

March, 2006

February, 2006

January, 2006