GovernmentExecutive.com

Maybe this is an abundantly obvious thing to say, but if we're going to have a discussion about waste or resource priorities in the Census, one obvious answer is that we really ought to be able to fill out Census forms online. If the Internal Revenue Service can handle tax information safely and securely online, surely we can do the same with the ten questions on the Census form.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's parsing of words around the question of whether or not Joe Stack, the man who flew a plane into an Austin, Texas IRS building, was a terrorist. She says Stack "had his own personal issues and personal motives," and even though "he used a terrorist tactic...an individual who uses a terrorist tactic doesn't necessarily mean they are part of an organized group attempting an attack on the United States." By that criteria, it's only possible to be a terrorist if you use a "terrorist tactic" AND are a member of an organized group. I'm not sure Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber. Both of them carried out their acts as individuals. And I think defining terrorism in a way that doesn't include them is pretty dangerous, minimizing the nature of their attacks.

Also, I'm not sure Joe Stack's anti-government animus counts as "his own personal issues and personal motives." Stack's manifesto made clear he met with lots of other folks who shared his anti-IRS views. Those circles were definitely looser than al Qaeda cells, and I'm certain there are a lot of people in those circles who are horrified by Stack's actions, even as others rush to claim him as a hero. But that doesn't mean that Stack didn't have an ideology, and that he didn't try to terrorize federal employees and the federal government. By that definition, I remain convinced that he's a terrorist, and not just a common murderer.

By Elizabeth Newell

OMB Director Peter Orszag spoke at a Government Executive leadership breakfast this morning, and we have stories posted on his comments on federal pay and combating distrust in government. But a couple other comments stuck out at me.

On the SAVE Awards:

Orszag strongly insinuated that many of the cost-saving ideas submitted through the SAVE awards process were not worthy of transparency. While he said the primary reason that only four of the ideas were make public was to allow for candid internal discussions, he made several jokes about the quality of the ideas and said "many were not as promising as one might have hoped for." Here are some other quotes on the awards process.

"On a quality- adjusted basis, we might be a little below [the more than 38,000 ideas submitted]. We had a selection process for highlighting and including in the budget the best ideas... I think the issue really is similar - and we're continually evaluating this question - to the internal discussions on the budget. Before decisions are made, what is the balance of transparency versus preserving the discussion."

"What I'd like to do is take the maybe four or five hundred of them that were at the bottom of the distribution and share them with you to give you an idea of the somewhat sordid process we went through."

On a management agenda:

Orszag also made it pretty clear the administration won't be spending time coming up with a catchy name for their management agenda, a la the Bush Administration's President's Management Agenda (PMA) or the Clinton era National Performance Review (NPR).

"I don't know that a cute name is what's necessary. I think what we need to do is do the hard work. If we succeed in significantly transforming the IT backbone of the government and working with [OPM Director] John Berry on significantly improving not only the hiring part but the other components of the human capitol agenda, those will be huge, lasting fundamental changes that will make the federal government work better for decades to come. There are other additional things that need to happen that we're acting upon - contracting a good example - but in terms of the underlying core function of the federal government across every agency, that IT backbone and a high-performing workforce are, I think, the two foundational pieces to an improved federal government."

Obviously, it's been controversial, and Census officials ended up trying to explain their strategy again on CNBC. As someone who wasn't old enough to participate in the previous Census independently, I've been fairly impressed by the Census's bread-and-butter outreach. When I came home last week, there was a flyer stuck on my door explaining the Census and privacy issues. And a letter from Robert Groves, telling me that my form will be arriving in a week and asking me to please send it back, came in the mail last night. I certainly was thinking more about the Census generally because of the television ads (which I really do think are quite witty), but now it's on my calendar as a specific task for next week.

I'm at the National Treasury Employees Union 2010 Legislative Conference, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., just launched a full-throated attack on the filibuster:

"I want to talk about the way the Senate has to clean up its act. Let me tell you, I am frustrated as hell at the United States Senate. And I'm mad as hell, and I don't want to take it any more. And why am I mad? Because it now takes 60 votes to get anything done. I thought in the United States, America should rule. Every single day, more gets said than gets done. And I know you're grumpy. Grumpy's a good day for me. WI'm part of a young group of Senators who want to change the filibuster rule. I think that is a dated rule from another century. This is the kind of rule that helped Jesse Helms when he tried to filibuster the civil rights bill."

Changing Congressional rules is hard, but it's interesting to see the health care fight build momentum for those changes.

Over at GovLoop, Sandy Ressler, who has been a federal employee for 25 years, has kicked off a terrific debate (registration required) over how to stem the tide of negative opinion, and even violence, against federal employees. Among his commenters' suggestions:

-It's time for a modernized federal public relations system: "What did Toyota do when their image was destroyed by the recent recalls? They really amped up their PR/advertising campaign to focus on what they were doing right and proactively tried to address the concerns that their customers had. Historically speaking, the a government agency's public affairs function has been at best, understaffed, and at worst, non-existent. They're too often led by people without a public affairs/public relations background and they're among the first functions to get cut when there's a budget crunch. Should we really be surprised then that the public image of government has decreased over time? This isn't a question of open government or Gov 2.0 - it's a question of basic PR and marketing."

-Management support matters: "The best way to turn this around is to get the chain of command to support the employees. The employees don't make up the rules - they just enforce them. Management needs to be focused on the work place environment so the "worker bees" can get their jobs done. If management can be more receptive to employees training needs and sit in the offices collecting a pay check - then shame on them. Supervisor need to be out interacting with their employees to find out what is going on out on the floor. Supervisor need to set the example and be willing to pitch in when event on the ground become overwhelming and set the proper priorities."

It's a great, productive conversation. Definitely worth checking out.

By Tom Shoop

Remember the allegations back in January that an Office of Management and Budget employee had threatened "to make life miserable" for an official at the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general office if the IG complained to Congress about his budget? OMB Director Peter Orszag promised an expedited review of the charges, and he has delivered.

The Washington Post's Federal Eye reports that Orszag told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday that the OMB employee, a career staffer, will soon face disciplinary action.

Threats of budgetary retaliation are "unacceptable at OMB," Orszag said. But he added that the incident appears to be isolated.

By Robert Brodsky

The number of Executive Branch political appointees could be dramatically cut under a bill reintroduced in the Senate Monday.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., are pushing the Control Spending Now Act, which would cap the number of political appointments at 2,000. The senators previously introduced the legislation in the Clinton and Bush administrations but the bills were not enacted.

"Over the last year, a common theme I have been hearing from Wisconsinites at my listening sessions is frustration with the growing government bureaucracy," Feingold said. "Unnecessary bureaucratic positions not only waste taxpayer dollars, but also make government less effective and less responsive to the people it represents. In the face of record deficits, this bill offers a good way to save while improving the way government works."

Since 1980, the number of political appointees in government has risen by nearly 28 percent, creating added costs and bureaucracy, the senators said.

"In this time of economic crisis, we must do everything possible to eliminate waste and make the federal government smaller and more efficient," McCain said. "This bill is simple--it will save money and result in a more streamlined Executive Branch."

The legislation would leave it up to the Executive Branch to determine how to reduce the number of political appointees, providing them with one year to make the cuts. Positions outlined in the Constitution would not be affected by the bill.

If enacted, the Congressional Budget Office previously estimated it could save $872 million over ten years.

By Robert Brodsky

The hierarchy in small business federal contracting has been thrown into chaos as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled last week that HUBZone small businesses "take priority" in procurement awards above firms owned by socially or economically disadvantaged individuals or service-disabled veterans.

The court's ruling , which was unsealed on March 2, would create a pecking order in small business contracting, with HUBZone companies, which operate in low-income urban and rural neighborhoods, at the top of the food chain. The decision states that agencies must now consider whether HUBZone companies can compete for a contract before awarding it under another small business program or on a sole-source basis.

The decision by Chief Judge Emily Hewitt supports an earlier ruling by the Government Accountability Office and essentially rebukes guidance issued last summer by the Office of Management and Budget and the Justice Department.

We'll have more on this story later today.

The debate's been heating up in comments over at a story I wrote on Friday about whether $100,000 is a good threshhold number to use to talk about federal pay. Beyond that question though, I think it's important to understand that patterns in pay are the product of long-standing system and of long tenure, and that it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to radically change compensation policy in response to fluctuations in the economy.

While the economic situation is grave, and its impact on many American families is extremely serious, the recession also isn't going to last forever. I have neither a crystal ball nor a sophisticated economic model to hand, so I can't say how long it's going to last. But immediately slashing federal salaries is something that would take time to pass and to implement, and by the time it was implemented, it's entirely possible that the economy would have recovered. Reversing those cuts would then take additional time, during which the federal government would be disadvantaged in comparison to recovering private sector firms. Because a lag is inevitable, it's impossible to make public sector pay match the economy's rise and fall inevitably, and following behind those economic curves probably would do more harm to the government's ability to recruit and retain qualified employees than it would help reduce the deficit or impart a sense of fairness to laid-off Americans.

And really, federal pay is going to look a lot lower on the aggregate when an entire cohort of long-tenured, highly-paid federal employees retires, and is replaced by workers starting at much, much lower salaries. Those employees' salaries will rise over time, of course, but so do most people's, commensurate with experience. Higher federal salaries are a rising and falling curve rather than a permanent condition, and folks would do well not to get in a permanent panic about it.