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



Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Congress Demands Investigation of Overuse of Contractors

Walter Pincus reported in the Washington Post on Monday that the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill includes a requirement that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell produce a report by March concerning the "activities performed by contractors" in all 16 intelligence agencies and how the outsourcing process at those agencies is overseen.

Apparently Congress is concerned the intelligence community does not understand which functions can appropriately be outsourced and which should be handled by government employees. Perhaps they are also concerned about one estimate showing a core government worker, on average, costs about half as much ($126,500) as a average contracted employee ($250,000). That fact alone is cause for concern. How are contractors supposed to be saving the government money when they are charging twice as much as it would cost the government?

Tom Shoop, who blogs over at Government Executive magazine, quoted another blogger who focuses on the intelligence community who correctly points out the funding structure Congress has implemented has lead to increased levels of outsourcing:

By limiting the number of positions within the Intelligence Community while adding funds for services, Congress set the stage for the wide scale outsourcing we see today, with some 70% of the de facto workforce of the CIA's National Clandestine Service made up of contractors. After years of contributing to the increasing reliance upon contractors, Congress is now providing a framework for the conversion of contractors into federal government employees--more or less.

An interesting aspect to this issue is that Congress has allowed Mr. McConnell the leeway to automatically change positions held by contractors into full-time government positions. McConnell has the authority to increase the size of the intelligence agencies by up to 10 percent.

This approach might be one way to fight back against the raft of outsourcing that has accelerated during the Bush presidency - by giving executive branch personnel the authority to expand government positions automatically rather than having to pound a higher appropriations number through Congress every year for staff increases. I'm curious to see if this tactic will work, and if so, if it will be tried elsewhere in the Federal government. Stay tuned...





Posted by Adam Hughes, 09:53:04 AM



Monday, December 17, 2007

IRS Privatization Program Lives Until 2008

More news is emerging from the budget deal reached over the weekend, and this tidbit is not good. The omnibus appropriations bills does not contain any language that would kill or restrict the private tax collection program run by the IRS. The version of the Financial Services Appropriations bill included language that would have stopped the IRS from outsourcing tax collection that was removed from the omnibus.

Despite overwhelming evidence that the program is wasteful and dangerous, and strong support for ending the program, it appears the companies receiving contracts to keep one-quarter of the money they collect have too many political connections. It is possible Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) key voice and strong support of the program kept language out of the omnibus bill.

I suppose it is back to the drawing board for public protection and privacy advocates - as well as anyone with the least bit of common sense - who strongly opposed the program. If you are someone who owes money to the IRS, watch out! With this program in place, who knows who will come knocking on your door.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 11:19:47 AM



Thursday, December 13, 2007

USASpending.gov Launched!

OMB has launched their website that will comply with the 2006 Coburn-Obama Federal Funding, Accountability, and Transparency Act (Transparency Act) today. You can visit it at www.usaspending.gov. OMB really needs to be commended for this site, for launching it two weeks before required under the legislation, and for their commitment to transparency.

For those of you who haven't been to the BudgetBlog before or have, but are still sleepy this morning, you might not notice that the government's website looks an awful lot like FedSpending.org, the site we launched in October, 2006. Well, that's because it basically is FedSpending.org, with a few design changes. As the Washington Post reported this morning, OMB Watch licensed FedSpending.org to OMB for use in compliance with the law (btw, the article is a great insight into the collaboration we've had with OMB over the past year). We will continue to operate FedSpending.org and add more advanced features that make the site easier to use and the data easier to understand. And we hope with a solid foundation, OMB will be able to make timely and eventually more accurate data available to the public through USASpending.gov.

Currently, there are difference between the sites. For instance, OMB will have more timely data as they plan to update the site every two weeks with new data (we currently update data twice a year). In addition, the government site does not have features and upgrades added to FedSpending.org in our last version release, including a mapping feature on all searches, creation of a streamlined and powerful SuperSearch for all advanced searching needs, and increased flexibility in getting data more quickly through expandable summary views.

I have been continually surprised and proud of the success of our endevor to make Federal spending information more available and understandable to the public through FedSpending.org. For it to now be the model for the government's efforts to do the same is feels even better.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 10:16:37 AM



Tuesday, December 11, 2007

New Report: Privatization In The States

The Progressive States Network just put out an excellent report on privatization. It does three things mainly:

  • Documents the failures and dangers of privatizing government on the state level
  • Makes the case for increased transparency of privatized state government
  • And with the data available, measures the extent of privatization on a number of policy areas in each state.

Much of the privatization that occurs at the state level is in the delivery of federal programs, like the National School Lunch Program, Medicaid, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. As for its implications for the federal workplace (emph. mine):

While there have been a few highly publicized privatization efforts in some states in recent years, broad trends in public employment do indicate that this is happening within a context of broader stability below the surface. According to the United States Census Bureau, total state and local employment increased from 14.2 million in 199738 to 15.8 million full-time equivalent employees in 2003,39 then to 16.1 million full-time equivalents in 2006,40 showing stable growth in public employment paralleling growth in state populations.

This is actually in sharp contrast to the federal government, which has seen significant downsizing of federal employees in favor of contractors, with total civilian federal employment actually falling from 2.81 million employees in 199741 down to 2.04 million employees in 2003.42 This reflects what Mildred Warner calls the increasing ideological approach to privatization as you move from the local to the federal level.43 It's worth noting that a few of the states most identified with privatization in recent years have strong ideological ties to the current White House, including Florida, where President Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, began a large drive for privatization; Texas, where President Bush's successor as Texas Governor, Rick Perry, led privatization efforts; and in Indiana, where former Bush White House Budget Director, Mitch Daniels, has been strongly promoting privatization as governor. But in this ideological commitment to privatization, they seem to be in contrast to the broader trends across all the states.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 06:07:17 PM



Monday, December 10, 2007

Some Good Contracting News

Sen. Jim Webb's office is saying that the Defense authorization act will include provisions to set up a commission to investigate wartime contracting. The bill is expected to pass later this week. It'll be very interesting to what kinds of recommendations and findings the commission produces. The Defense bill will also reform a number of contracting administration rules.

In other contracting news, the state department's inspector general is stepping down under suspicions of blocking investigations into Blackwater's ties to smuggled weapons in Iraq. As it turns out, his brother sits on Blackwater's advisory board and was heavily involved in getting the company to do government security work.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 12:57:36 PM



Tuesday, December 04, 2007

A Lot Of What's Wrong With Privatization In A Single Sentence

Salon reports that President's Bush pick to head the VA works for a government contractor that charges big bucks to help determine who gets health benefits.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 01:20:24 PM




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