It'll be the lowest raise for the troops since the institution of the all-volunteer military in 1973. More to come.

I wanted to point folks in the direction of this post by Matthew Yglesias on the dynamics of the debate around cutting the number of political appointees and increasing the power of career civil servants. I tend to think it's a good thing when this discussion bubbles up intelligently beyond the realm of management blogs and bureaucracy commentators and reporters into the mainstream political commentariat's discussions of policy problems. As long as the balance between civil servants and political appointees gets treated like an obscure, proceduralist obsession, it'll never be seriously addressed.

But I also think Matt's post is a good summary of the conventional lines into which this debate falls. Opponents of elevating civil servants assume that a) they're stupid, b) that they're unresponsive, c) that it might be better for government to be inefficient so larger incentives will exist for eliminating it. A) seems largely refuted by some of the political science research Matt points to, and not to remotely account for the questions of continuity and experience that frequently plague political appointees, b) ignores that no matter who controls agencies and programs, they can still be regularly hauled in front of Congressional committees and their budgets will still be under control of the regular budgeting process and c) is an intractable ideological difference. Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but I think it's useful to be aware of the lines of arguments and responses. Maybe this debate will actually reach up to the level where something can be done about it. If it does, proponents of civil servants' roles ought to be ready to make their case.

By Robert Brodsky

A GSA source just confirmed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has filed a cloture motion that could finally bring an end to the stalled nomination of Martha Johnson to serve as administrator of the General Services Administration.

If you remember, Johnson, a former chief of staff for GSA during the Clinton administration, was nominated for the position in April. But after sailing through her confirmation hearing with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last summer, Johnson's nomination was halted by a hold from Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo, regarding a building dispute in Kansas City. The cloture vote would essentially break the hold and force a vote on Johnson's nomination.

Details are still coming in and the senator's office has not yet confirmed the cloture filing. But it appears that Johnson may finally get an up or down vote.

We will have more details on Friday.

Just a quick point. Often in the discussion of the health care bill, you will see people -- such as a reader of our Atlantic Media colleague Andrew Sullivan -- say that union members and government workers would be "exempted" in a now-hypothetical deal on the excise tax. (More info about the tax here and here.)

Not true. What the deal would do is give them a five-year delay on the tax. Once the tax hits union members as well as local, state, and federal government employees in 2018, their plans would be taxed at the same rate as everyone else's. (Of course, this deal isn't finalized, so anything could change. And it could be a moot point if Congress doesn't move forward with the bill.)

A five-year break might sound like a pretty sweet deal -- and obviously, the White House thinks it's good enough to win over some votes.

But remember, most of the dire costs that critics have been predicting about the excise tax wouldn't really hit until a while down the road, anyway. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, about 14 percent of single employee plans and 9 percent of family employee plans would be above the threshold in 2013. In 2018, 25 percent of single plans and 19 percent of family plans would be affected. The document also shows that the percentage of the premiums affected by the tax -- that is, the amount that would either be taxed at 40 percent or would have to be scaled back -- would also be pretty small in 2013, but would slowly rise each year.

(This report is about the thresholds in the original Senate bill. The compromise deal would raise the thresholds for the tax slightly, so the numbers might be a little bit less.)

When I was watching last night's State of the Union address, the thing that struck me most about it was that it was extremely light on discussion of the process of getting things done. I thought about that from a couple of perspectives. First, quite frankly, was the lack of discussion of how government is getting things done meant that I had to write a shorter speech wrap-up than I expected (particularly since the student loan program he touted is implemented--it's old news). Second, the speech felt like confirmation of a sentiment I had watching Obama's candidacy two years years ago, put very well here by my friend and ace Johns Hopkins political science professor Steve Teles in a meditation written during the campaign:

a well-trained candidate for president should have some sophistication and experience with organizational behavior, with knowing what one can and cannot expect complex organizations like the federal government to actually do, and how they can be induced to change. Obama's life has been spent on local organizing, in the law, and in legislatures, but not in complex bureaucracies (public or private), and his academic training is in law, not business or public policy. Having taught at a very good law school, I know that they do a number of things very well, but getting students to think about the behavior of bureaucracies is not one of them. Obama has been great at leading a lightly-entrenched, highly networked campaign structure. But my fear is that Obama will expect more from the sprawling, highly entrenched federal government than it can deliver, at least without the savvy at administrative leadership that comes from having been around a wide range of bureaucracies over a long period of time.

Continue reading "State of the Union" »

By Robert Brodsky

The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan has opened two offices in Southwest Asia. One office is located in central Baghdad while the other is at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, roughly 25 miles from Kabul.

The congressionally-charter commission said this week that it has deployed one staffer to Iraq, with another to follow, and two others to Afghanistan.

"We hired experts for these overseas posts," said Robert Dickson, the commission's executive director. "They have decades of experience in construction management, military contracting, development projects, policy analysis, program management, and other work that ties directly to our research areas."

Dickson said the overseas staff will be able to "maintain liaison with agencies and commands in theater, fill data requests from stateside staff, directly observe events on the ground, and assist with commissioners' research visits to the region.

By Elizabeth Newell

Among the new features to Recovery.gov to be unveiled Saturday will be a search function providing details on job opportunities across the country. According to Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board chairman Earl Devaney, the search will turn back job leads, employment tips and access to thousands of websites managed by stimulus fund recipients.

"This new search feature will help Americans narrow their job hunt," Devaney said. "Blue collar and white collar workers will benefit. Jobs are available in both the private and public sectors, including contractors, vendors, and state and local government agencies."

By way of example, he said a search for a backhoe operator or a systems programmer in a given state will direct the user to recipient websites with job openings in those fields, along with other employment information helpful to job seekers.

Other improvements include advanced search capability for awards made to stimulus fund recipients, simplification of the home page and enhanced map functions.

By Robert Brodsky

The number of contract protests filed with the Government Accountability Office soared in 2009, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The GAO reported that it received 1,989 bid protests last year, up 20 percent from the 1,652 filed in 2008.

The increase is not altogether surprising as GAO's jurisdiction recently expanded. Companies can now file protests on task orders [139 filings in 2009], A-76 outsourcing decisions [16 filings in 2009] and Transportation Security Administration contracts [13 filings in 2009]. These three categories represented 50 percent of the total increase in protest filings from 2008 to 2009, the GAO said in its annual report to Congress.

While the number of protests jumped dramatically, the sustainment rate actually declined. The GAO ruled in favor of the protestor 18 percent of the time last year, compared to 21 percent in 2008. An additional 149 were settled through a process known as alternative dispute resolution, up from 78 the year before.

Lots of analysts on the left and the right are attempting to read the tea leaves on President Obama's announcement of a spending freeze. Of course, the Defense Department and a number of other social services agencies are exempt in Obama's plans, and as the Congressional Budget Office wrote in an assessment of the Fiscal 2010 Defense budget, Defense spending is likely to rise, in some cases because of increasing costs, in others because Congress will give Defense employees more than the department intended:

The department's resource requirements to execute the same plans could be even greater. CBO has also estimated some "unbudgeted" costs that reflect the likelihood that weapon systems would cost more than initially estimated; that medical costs and fuel prices would grow at rates faster than DoD has anticipated; and that pay raises the Congress enacts for military personnel and DoD's civilian employees might exceed the percentages in the department's plans. Furthermore, additional appropriations may be necessary to fund overseas contingency operations.

All of which is a semi-convoluted way of saying that I find the psychology of spending freezes almost inexplicable. Nobody really wants to freeze spending entirely and seriously. But everyone wants to look like they support freezes as a concept.

Last week, I took a look at changes in the federal income tax withholding rates for 2010. If you're confused about this -- or you want to get a better idea of how the new rates will affect you -- the Office of Personnel Management announced Monday that its handy Federal Tax Withholding Calculator is now up-to-date with the 2010 rates.

There are some interesting observations in Farhad Manjoo's piece on the Obama administration's failures to live up to its promises about using technology to make government more effective, efficient, and responsive. But there are also some significant problems with the piece that I think need addressing.

First, Manjoo conflates Obama's failures to build on the technological elements of his campaign in building his political coalition with the progress, or lack of progress he's made, on making government more technologically open. This is a major, major problem that people who don't write about government frequently make. But a president has several jobs, among them working with, and sometimes against, the legislative branch, and making internal executive branch decisions about the direction of policy. Failing to rally supporters through a streamlined and transitioned Obama for America network is not a failure to make government agencies more open and technologically savvy. Failing to recognize that they're different would be a different kettle of fish altogether, and an intriguing argument for someone to make, but Manjoo doesn't make it.

Continue reading "Obama, Technology, and Government" »

As commenter Bruce Rodman pointed out on my post on Bones:

Fringe, on the other hand, had an episode in which a deadly virus had infected 12 people in an office building. CDC was on site with a lot of fancy equipment, quarantined the building, and eventually got the State Department (?) to approve having the Army kill the infected people. (Fortunately, and not surprisingly, there was a last-minute cure developed!)

I do really think the most pernicious things television shows can do to their characters who work for the government is to portray them as conspiratorial. That perspective serves to feed paranoid trends, while doing precisely nothing to foster honest discussion about what government does, and doesn't, do right. Motivational concerns are worth discussing, but only when they're real. Or at least, realistic.

By Elizabeth Newell

The administration has officially ditched the "jobs saved or created" measure of performance under the Recovery Act and will instead be reporting on jobs funded.

In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a vocal critic of how job creation was being reported under the stimulus, Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board Chairman Earl Devaney confirmed the change, which was first reported by Government Executive in December. According to Devaney, auditing jobs funded is considerably easier than auditing jobs created or saved, which Devaney called "more subjective."

"Recovery.gov will be changed to indicate that the jobs reported by recipients during this most recent reporting period reflect jobs that were funded by the Recovery Act between October 1 and December 31, 2009," Devaney said. "We will also include information on Recovery.gov that will explain how job estimates were calculated in the first reporting period and how they were calculated in the second reporting period."

As Issa pointed out, however, senior administration officials did not seem to have made the rhetorical switch as of Sunday talk show time. Two White House senior advisors - David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett -- referenced jobs saved or created on Sunday, as did White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

In 2009, union membership in the private sector fell, union membership in the public sector grew -- but the percentage of union members in the federal workforce stayed about steady, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to a Friday release, there were about 1 million union members in the federal government in 2009, which is 28 percent of wage and salary workers in the federal government. In 2008, that percentage was 28.1 percent. Even though there were about 11,000 more union members in the federal government in 2009, that increase was outpaced by the overall increase of 52,000 in the federal workforce, according to the BLS.

In the private sector, the membership rate dropped from 7.6 percent in 2008 to 7.2 percent in 2009. In the overall public sector -- including state and local workers as well as federal -- rose from 36.8 percent to 37.4 percent.

Overall, the union membership rate in the country also stayed steady, from 12.4 percent in 2008 to 12.3 percent in 2009.

One quick note: The BLS used two statistics, "Members of Unions" and "Represented by Unions." The second category includes workers who don't report a union affiliation, but whose jobs are covered by a union or employee association contract. In that category, union representation in the federal government rose slightly -- from 33 percent in 2008 to 33.2 percent in 2009.

The central message, whether he intended it or not, of Errol Southers' long interview with Federal News Radio seems to be that he was unprepared to handle the political pressures that would have been placed on him had he ultimately been confirmed to run the agency. I'm sure it must be embarrassing and frustrating to have an error you made continuously paraded before you, but if that's too much for you to handle, accepting a presidential nomination may not be a wise decision. And it's frankly nothing compared to what it would have been like to be running the agency during the attempted Christmas bombing. But if I were the unions that have been trying to unionize TSA, this is the paragraph I'd pay attention to:

Southers said [DeMint's] concerns and criticism of him were unfair, because he didn't have access to internal TSA information about unionization."I wanted to make the best recommendation that I could to Secretary Napolitano after I had that information. That was insufficient for him. He wanted a yes or no answer," Southers said.

When Janet Napolitano was going through her confirmation hearings to run the Homeland Security Department, she told lawmakers she'd find out if she had the legal authority to grant TSA screeners collective bargaining rights. Looks like she decided that she didn't, and the decision has been kicked back down to the TSA Administrator. Which means it may be a long time into the Obama administration before the TSA workers forming unions find out if those unions are going to be able to bargain for them.

After we published my story on the appointment of Navy career executive John H. James to head the office that will be responsible for repealing the National Security Personnel System, a couple of other folks sent in reactions to the announcement or recollections of James. From Darryl Perkinson, president of the Federal Managers Association:

"The mention of John James as the NSPS Transition lead is welcome. Mr. James has been a guest of the Federal Managers Association nationally and locally at Norfolk Naval Shipyard for key events. His expertise and demeanor have always been well respected in the NAVSEA community. It is assuring that he will lead the transition since his reputation of being professional and fair is well known. I personally have spoken with him on several occasions and been deeply impressed by his knowledge."

And William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees and chair of the Federal Workers Alliance had thoughts on the rollback:

"We are pleased to see DoD establish a transition office. It shows that the agency is committed to doing the transition out of NSPS right. The more internal accountability there is, the better off the department and all the workers going through the transition are going to be. We look forward to working with the NSPSTO on a department-wide performance management system. There is a lot of room for improvement throughout the agency in the area of performance management. We expect involvement in the design and implementation of the performance management system. We hope that the NSPSTO will make certain that new hires at DoD are not being enrolled into NSPS. The way we see it, with the conversion out of NSPS begun, DoD should be done hiring into NSPS. Putting new employees into NSPS at this point is unnecessary."

For some reason, last night's episode of Bones decided to portray the General Services Administration as a sinister government entity capable of sequestering a lab of federal scientists to identify a body (which may be the skeleton of President John F. Kennedy). Normally, I'm not in favor of television shows wildly obfuscating what federal agencies do, but this was a great, paranoid, funny hour of television that borrowed from The X-Files and reached new heights in an already great series. And Bones actually did quite a good job of explaining what GSA actually does. And there was a ton of interagency cooperation drama! So I'm prepared to forgive the show for its conspiracy-mongering, for now. Although I'm kind of tempted to call up GSA to see what they have in the basement, now.

We may all be waiting for the refresh of USAJobs.gov. But today, veterans who might be interested in federal jobs got a web portal of their own, with the launch of Feds Hire Vets, the website for the Obama administration's veterans hiring initiative. The site has comprehensive, practical advice on how the federal hiring process works in general and how veterans and spouses can make sure they take full advantage of the special authorities that apply to them. And it also has sections for hiring managers and agencies who want to find the easiest ways possible to bring veterans into government.

Obviously a website is no more and no less than a web portal. It's not a guarantee veterans will be hired. But in a world where folks are web-reliant, and may need to do research and think about their options before they feel confident enough to approach a case worker, or a hiring manager, it's extremely valuable to have navigable, comprehensive websites like this available. I'll be curious to see how much of this information is integrated into the new USAJobs; the more places folks can find this information, the better.

As political junkies are no doubt aware, on Tuesday night Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy. To put it lightly, the special election results have been getting a lot of notice here in D.C.

Last Friday, we reported about a possible compromise deal on the excise tax in the proposed health care legislation. The compromise deal would provide some relief to federal workers worried about taxes on their health care plans, but doesn't give them the same delay which state and local government workers, as well as unionized private sector employees, would receive under the proposed compromise.

But with Tuesday's development, the status of that compromise -- as well as the excise tax and the whole health care bill -- is in limbo.

The idea behind the compromise deal is that the House would attach the changes to the Senate's bill and pass it, the Senate would pass the bill with the House's revisions, and then President Obama would sign the final version into law. But now that Democrats have lost a crucial 60th vote in the Senate, they're not going to be able to squeeze the same health care bill through the Senate a second time.

It could be that the House passes the Senate's bill -- leaving the excise tax unchanged from its earlier version. It could be that Congress tries to change the excise tax later through the reconciliation process. Or it could be that the health care bill is dead, and the excise tax dies with it. We'll just have to wait and see.

President Obama announced on Tuesday that he intended to nominate two new members to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board -- adding new leadership to the governing body of the Thrift Savings Plan, which has been overseen by the same people for years.

According to an announcement from the White House, Obama will nominate Dana Bilyeu, the executive officer of the Public Employees' Retirement System of Nevada, and Michael Kennedy, a senior client partner and financial specialist at Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm.

According to Tom Trabucco, the TSP's director of external affairs, Bilyeu and Kennedy will be replacing current FRTIB members Thomas Fink and Gordon Whiting.

All of the five current board members are serving past their terms. Fink's term ended in 2003, and Whiting's term ended in 2006. No further information is available about a timetable for the confirmation process, or whether Obama will make any more appointments.

There's a lot of big news today -- a Senate election in Massachusetts, continuing recovery efforts in Haiti -- but one revelation raising eyebrows in D.C. is the Washington Post's front-page article detailing how the FBI may have illegally searched thousands of phone records from 2002 to 2006 during terrorism investigations. The gist of the story is that FBI agents searched phone records, and only sought the proper documentation after the fact -- and that they invoked "nonexistent emergencies" for searches, which the FBI's general counsel has admitted may be a technical violation of law.

Depending on how you look at it, this either seems like a bureaucratic mishap -- it looks like the FBI might have had the legal right to search the records, had they followed the correct procedure -- or yet another example of federal agencies overstepping their power, and possibly violating personal privacy, following the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the National Whistleblower Center notes that the issue likely never would have been corrected or come to light if it weren't for the efforts of one federal employee, Bassem Youssef, a special agent and unit chief in the FBI's counter-terrorism division who specializes in communication. Youssef, the highest-ranking Arabic speaker in the FBI, tried to bring the agency into compliance with the law when he first learned of the possible violations in 2005, his attorney said in a statement released by the Whistleblower Center. Youssef testified to the Department of Justice inspector general, and also sent letters to the attorney general's office outlining corrective actions. The IG report was scheduled to be released later this month, according to the Post.

The Whistleblower Center said this is yet another reason why Congress should pass the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, which would increase whistleblower protections for intelligence workers.

I wanted to post a roundup of federal employee- and agency-related news and developments on Haiti.

-The Office of Personnel Management has given agencies a waiver to allow them to collect cash contributions from their employees for Haiti relief outside of the Combined Federal Campaign. That collection will probably use the CFC as a model. For readers who asked me about how to donate to Paul Farmer's organization, Partners In Health, you can give to their Haiti earthquake operations at Stand With Haiti.

-DipNote has a good roundup of how many federal personnel from which departments and agencies are at work and on the ground doing relief work in Haiti. And the State Department has a tool up that will help folks identify relatives and friends in Haiti.

-And though of course it's awful to think of people taking advantage of a disaster like this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is doing their job in keeping an eye out: they've got a fraud reporting hotline set up for Haiti-specific tips. You can call (866) 720-5721, fax (225) 334-4707 or e-mail disaster@leo.gov if you suspect wrongdoing.

Reason, the libertarian magazine, has devoted much of its most recent issue to issues of government. And while I think Gregg Carlstrom did a good job of fisking a slightly hysterical piece on federal pay. But I think this piece by William Eggers and John O'Leary, making the case that libertarians should care more about good government, and not simply treat agencies, bureaucrats and government projects with outright contempt, is well-worth reading. A lot of Eggers and O'Leary's arguments tend towards convincing libertarians that they'll be more effective in shrinking government if they're more familiar with it, an ideological goal I don't have much to say about, but they also make what I think is an important point about efficacy more generally:

Many voters today may indeed want smaller government, but what they want most of all is competent government. In addition to pointing out the flaws of government, free-marketers also need to communicate a genuine interest in the effective performance of the important duties of government.

After all, what is it that gets you so worked up about the current state of affairs? It is the human potential squandered by a government that isn't the best that it can be. The ultimate goal is the pursuit of happiness, and when a properly limited government does its job well, it fosters freedom, peace, and prosperity. That is a noble goal. Why not embrace it?

Alex Parker's report on intelligence community Chief Human Capital Officer Ron Sanders' retirement mostly centers on one key part of his legacy: pay-for-performance for intelligence workers. It's undoubtedly an issue Sanders was passionate about, and he seems confident that an evaluation of the system he set up across the agencies in the Directorate of National Intelligence will receive a good rating and be allowed to continue.

It really does seem to me like we're at a tipping point, where the question of compensation seems more important than any other federal HR issue. There's a consensus around the need for hiring reform. Labor-management partnership is always going to be a partisan issue, which means neither Democrats, nor Republicans, nor unions are likely to act unpredictably on the subject; it's hard to imagine the partnerships either being permanently enshrined or permanently banned. Folks generally agree telework and work-life balance are important issues with real benefits. Compensation and performance management are left as the areas where there is substantial disagreement and clash over what's effective, what's appropriate, and what's feasible--but it's also one of the few areas in my reporting where I see attitudes shifting. I can't say definitively which direction they're moving in, but the conversation is at least dynamic. What the outcome will be is entirely uncertain, and frankly, in these kinds of debates, that seems rare.

Well, kind of. The excise tax looks like it'll be in a final health care reform bill, but union members who have health care coverage where price and coverage are determined through collective bargaining will get a two-year delay in the tax's implementation to give their unions time to negotiate for new contracts. So, no change or reprieve for federal employees, just pacification for large private-sector unions.

I got a request from a reader to discuss how U.S. response to the crisis in Haiti might be different if Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, which at present appears to have the only functional health care institutions in the country through its network of Zanmi Lasante clinics, had become head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. (In the interests of full disclosure, I made a donation to PiH last night to aid their relief efforts.) I'd point to this post from August meditating on the possibilities of Farmer's managerial style to provide a sense of how I think he might have operated at USAID in general. When it comes to Haiti, well, that's a different matter. Obviously, Farmer's contacts in Haiti might have been extremely valuable in directing U.S. aid, although given the key health role Zanmi Lasante seems primed to play in the country's recovery, that may still be true. And as much as it seems a bit harsh to say this in the aftermath of a dreadful crisis, USAID's portfolio doesn't just vanish because Haiti is in ruins. I wonder if it might have been hard for Farmer to balance his attention to Haiti with everything else on his plate, although given the vast expanse of PiH's efforts, that may not have been a huge concern. Bottom line, I think Farmer will still be able to do a tremendous amount of good for Haiti right now. And I imagine the man who got the job, Rajiv Shah, is consulting him on how the U.S. can help best.

Kathryn Nix of the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative-leaning D.C. think tank -- has a blog post claiming that the Office of Personnel Management-managed health care plan in the Senate health care bill could be much more sweeping, and (depending on your perspective), dangerous than most realize.

Nix's post, and an accompanying memo from Heritage expert Ed Haislmaier, raise some interesting points about the plan. Would OPM's power to negotiate conditions with insurers -- and withdraw contracts from the ones that don't meet its standards -- crowd out private insurers? Is OPM well-positioned to be a de facto inter-state regulator for multi-state insurance plans? (Though the plans will still need to meet state regulations). Those objections were some of the main reasons why conservatives objected to the so-called public option, which would have been a government-run plan to compete with private insurers.

But their biggest worry is that one of the provision's final paragraphs -- "There is authorized to be appropriated, such sums as may be necessary to carry out this section'' -- could lead the way to government-financed health care plans, or "bail outs" of financially troubled plans. That doesn't seem to be the intent of that line -- it's in the section of the bill that deals with administration of the plan, not new entitlements, and no where in the bill does it say that OPM should pitch in to help to pay for the health care plans. But the act doesn't specifically forbid that, either.

As a counterpoint to the Heritage post, just note that the Congressional Budget Office felt the opposite way -- that, if anything, the problem with the OPM plan will be that few insurers or customers will be interested in it, and it will have a negligible effect.

For more thoughts on the OPM proposal, you can check out this forum of health care experts.

By Robert Brodsky

The food fight about Recovery Act job creation has kicked back into high gear.

On Tuesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a new report which found that the stimulus has added 1.5 to 2 million new jobs to the economy. Those jobs include indirect and induced spending from stimulus funds. In October, direct recipients of Recovery Act contracts, grants and loans reported that they had saved or created more than 600,000 direct jobs.

The Council's report also estimates that the growth rate of the economy would have been two percent lower if not for the $787 billion Recovery Act.

Republican critics, however, dismissed the numbers as propaganda. "What's the American public going to believe?" asked Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "Self-serving and deceptive numbers being put out by the White House on the stimulus, or the numbers that say we're at 10 percent unemployment when the Obama administration promised the stimulus would keep it below eight percent."

Meanwhile, a new report by Onvia, a market research firm that tracks stimulus contracting, argues that the biggest impact of the Recovery Act is still to come.

Onvia projects that only 25 percent of the $275 billion in stimulus contracts, grants and loans had been paid out by the federal government by the end of 2009. The firm expects a surge in infrastructure, energy and technology spending in 2010 that could lead to 1.1 million direct and indirect jobs from stimulus contract spending alone.

"Onvia's research reveals the true impact of the stimulus is about to be realized," said company CEO Mike Pickett.

Matt Yglesias blogged yesterday that he thought it was a good idea for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to adopt a policy of fining financial services companies that adopt compensation practices that encourage risky, short-term profit seeking. I can understand why that principle is appealing. But I would be extremely curious to hear more about how the FDIC defines those compensation practices, and on what basis they've concluded they're risky. If there's one thing that's become clear to me in the course of covering government, it's that folks don't have a great idea of how compensation works for anybody, and what kinds of pay motivates what kinds of behavior. Some types of pay, like stock options, may be exceptionally risky, and acknowledged to be so. But I'd want to know what else they were going to target before declaring this a fantastic idea across the board.

Matt Yglesias blogged yesterday that he thought it was a good idea for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to adopt a policy of fining financial services companies that adopt compensation practices that encourage risky, short-term profit seeking. I can understand why that principle is appealing. But I would be extremely curious to hear more about how the FDIC defines those compensation practices, and on what basis they've concluded they're risky. If there's one thing that's become clear to me in the course of covering government, it's that folks don't have a great idea of how compensation works for anybody, and what kinds of pay motivates what kinds of behavior. Some types of pay, like stock options, may be exceptionally risky, and acknowledged to be so. But I'd want to know what else they were going to target before declaring this a fantastic idea across the board.

Alex Parker has a good story up today on a new coalition of federal unions formed to create a unified front on personnel reform issues. The composition of the coalition, however, raised an interesting question for me:

The coalition does not yet include all the major players in federal organized labor. Two of the largest -- the National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of Government Employees -- have yet to sign up. Representatives from AFGE did not respond to the announcement on Monday, but Dougan said the union -- which is a member of UDWC -- already had decided not to join. NTEU President Colleen Kelley said in a statement that the union, which isn't a member of UDWC because it doesn't represent workers in Defense, hadn't been approached by the alliance about joining. "It speaks pretty loudly that we've got, with the exception of AFGE and NTEU, most of the remaining federal unions with a significant number of federal employees that they represent," Dougan said, noting that 13 of the 15 largest government unions were participating. "I'm certainly saddened that AFGE has chosen not to participate at this point in time. We're going to move forward and engage the administration as appropriate on issues as they come up."

NTEU's position is understandable, since the alliance is somewhat defense-focused. But I'm curious to see if this represents a split on personnel reform. AFGE has been much more outspoken than NFFE in its skepticism about the possibility and wisdom of reforming the federal pay system. If the administration could peel some unions off in support of its broader personnel reform efforts, it might have a stronger leg to stand on than the Bush administration did, though like it or not, Obama officials are going to have to reckon with NTEU and AFGE in any case.

Over at Wired Workplace, Brittany Ballenstedt has an interesting point: according to new polling data, some workers want more flexible schedules so much that they're willing to pay for the technology that will allow them to work outside of regular work hours, usually for smartphones:

For example, just 11 percent of U.S. information workers today use a smartphone at work. But two-thirds of respondents noted that they want more flexible work hours, while a third want to work from home at least occasionally. A third of respondents also said they use their own mobile phones for work.

The survey also found that teleworkers work, on average, two hours more per week than office workers, largely because they can access applications anywhere. For example, 81 percent of information workers with smartphones use them from home, while 62 percent use them for work while traveling, and 64 percent use them while at their desks. And 29 percent of smartphone users spend three or more hours a day with the device, Forrester found.

Even though I've seen this pattern play out with many of my friends who foot the entire bill for their smartphone useage even though they're using it to extend their productivity and availability hours for their employers, I find it a little worrisome. First, if workers genuinely need technology because their employers want them to stay productive, their employers should probably be paying for it, and making sure such technology has proper information safeguards, etc. Second, this reminds me a bit of early industrial-revolution piecework pay systems, where workers paid for their own material, did the work at home, and were paid for what work they handed it. Obviously, that's not a situation that's great for workers, either from an economic or a work-life balance standpoint. And third, I think it's probably in employers' interests to protect employees from themselves to a certain extent. It's great if employees want to work hard and work long hours, but at some point, employers have to step in and encourage a healthy work-life balance so their workers will stay functional. Some industries, like consulting, may rely on working some employees 100-hour weeks until they burn out. That's not a strategy that will work for most employers.

A suggestion on engaging veterans on mental health issues early, from commenter John Morrell:

The issue is to reach out to the veterans and their families while they are still members of the active military forces. This would of course include the reserve forces of all kinds. The 'safety net' that may be failing our troops is when they transition from activie duty to the civilian community. That is to say when they leave active duty and become veterans. There are only so many VA Outreach centers. While some do a great job others just do a job. I am hoping that Congress will be adding more money and requesting that more of these centers be opened. Our Members of Congress need to get us more Veteran Centers with full services in all parts of the country ASAP- as in NOW.

I'd be curious to hear other folks' thoughts on preventative mental health care for our servicemembers. Would it cut into folks' free time in frustrating ways? Would it be helpful? Would it make it easier for soldiers to ask for the help they need when they're in crisis?

Between 2005 and 2007, the suicide rates for men between the ages of 18 and 29 who had served in and left the military rose 26 percent, according to a new report from the Department of Veterans' Affairs. I'm not sure what to say about that other than that it's incredibly tragic, and that it illustrates the importance of reaching out to young veterans, and really, veterans of all ages, through as many channels as is possible.

Bob, over at the TSA Blog, has a good explanation of how U.S. aviation security regulations can influence the security standards adopted in other countries:

On Dec. 25, TSA took swift action immediately following the incident to strengthen those standards even further at airports across the country and around the world--enhancing screening for individuals flying to the United States and deploying additional airport law enforcement, air marshals and explosives detection canine teams, among other security measures. Because effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders, and as a result of extraordinary cooperation from our global aviation partners, TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening. TSA's new directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights. This means the majority of ALL international travelers will go through enhanced screening under this new security directive.

Obviously, the U.S. can't just mandate that other countries do precisely what TSA would prefer. But if America sets standards for entry into the country, business travelers in other countries in particular are likely to make sure those standards are met quickly so they can keep coming to meet with U.S. clients and vendors. It's possible, of course, that the U.S. could go overboard, and companies could simply switch to webconferencing or to doing business in areas like Europe with more integrated security regulations. But some travel to the U.S. is always going to be necessary or desireable. And even though our security has gotten much tighter since 2001, I don't think we've reached prohibitive levels yet.

If you're a federal employee working in human resources, and have thought about adding certification in an area like compensation, benefits, or work-life balance, WorldatWork may make it possible for you to get that continuing education for free. The organization is offering scholarships for 20 HR professionals in all fields to pursue those certifications. The scholarships cover online classes and exam fees, and include a WorldatWork membership. Applications aren't super-hard: an essay, a letter of recommendation, and proof you've been working in HR for at least two years. Details here.

I want to be a bit pop cultural for a minute and note the sheer genius of this item from The Onion. I don't know if there's a particular person who writes their government-oriented humor items, but the Onion is unusually good at capturing--and parodying--the cadences of bureaucratic language and official statements. Take this excerpt from the all-time classic from 2007, "Dept. of Evil: 'All of You Must Die'.":

Originally established by an act of Congress in 1953 and granted broader powers and funding in 1986 under the second Reagan administration, the Department of Evil has been an occasional source of controversy. Its 1993 And The Streets Shall Run Red With The Blood Of The Innocent initiative was highly criticized at the time by moderates, who thought the department's agenda overly harsh. Enlarge Image Department Of Evil Jump

An official from the Department of Evil described their 2007 strategic action plan at a conference in January. In 2004, an ambitious plan to seed the clouds with blood and then rain excruciation down upon the thrice-damned didn't even make it past a Senate budget committee, which criticized the plan as poorly conceived. And last year, the department received a stinging blow after Congress voted to allocate only one-third of the money requested to swell the ranks of its deranged, barbarous demon cavalry.

Despite those recent setbacks, a DOE spokesbeast said that the dread secretary remains confident that his department will prevail in the end.

Ridiculous, of course, but also a totally dead-on description of the difficulties agencies have with Congress, and the kind of confident statements spokesmen put out to spin those difficulties. I know for folks working in government, it's no fun to be mocked, but I don't think this is really what the Onion is doing. These pieces actually have a kind of empathy, I think. And it's part of what makes them so funny.

During the health care reform debate in the house, lawmakers, including a number of those who represent districts heavy with federal employees, managed to defeat a funding provision that would have levied a tax on providers of high-cost health plans. Though the taxes were intended to apply to the providers of those plans, opponents argued that companies would simply pass the taxes back down to consumers. And federal employee advocates argued that the high-cost (for ostensibly high-quality coverage) of Federal Employees Health Benefits Program plans meant that federal employees would be some of the first workers in the country hit with the excise tax. The Senate restored the tax, but set a slightly higher threshhold for the cost at which the tax would kick in, $8,500 for plans purchased by individuals to cover themselves, and $23,000 for plans that covered workers and their families, as opposed to $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families in the original Senate proposal.

Now, my beat partner and sometimes FedBlog contributor Alex Parker reports that President Obama has begun affirmatively advocating for the excise tax to be included in the final version of the legislation the House and Senate will have to approve. I'll be curious to see if any lawmakers, especially Jim Moran and Gerry Connolly, Democrats who spearheaded the original opposition to the excise tax in the name of federal employees, actually vote against the legislation if it does, as seems likely, have this mechanism. There are a lot of sacred cows in the health care debate, from Bart Stupak's opposition to abortion funding to this. And it'll be down to the wire to see how those cows are treated, and how people react to the changes in the final bill.

Plain English is a good start. But another important thing might be to make sure that there's always a text-searchable version of a bill available, preferably in PDF. Not always, but sometimes, I'll come across an enormous bill that isn't searchable in PDF, which can make it a mess to examine, particularly if I just want to see if it addresses a certain issue.

I just saw the trailer for She's Out of My League (linked to, rather than embedded, for some crude humor), which, as far as I know, may be the first major studio release to have a major character who is a Transportation Security Administration employee. I've got mixed feelings about that. I do think it's good for "government employee" to be a broad category of employment that people have in movies, along with other tropes like architect, lawyer, journalist, etc. On the other hand, I think it's unfortunate that giving the main character in this movie a TSA job as a way of signaling that he's kind of a schlub. If, as I think makes sense, the Department of Homeland Security wants to create an increasingly professionalized, intelligence-oriented TSA that has more in common with, say, Israeli flight security, than the privatized efforts of yore, pop culture portrayals like this aren't going to help.

Among them, encouraging folks to flee agencies. The General Services Administration's Chief of Staff has just left the agency after two years without an administrator to report to. It disturbs me how often holds on nominations are seen as purely political acts, when they're obviously so much more than that. Of course a hold is an easy way to signal an objection, real or feigned, to a nomination, or a nominee's stance on an issue. But it also deprives an agency of leadership and direction, and it has a significant impact on morale. Senators should weigh those impacts when they consider placing holds. And perhaps consider simply organizing no votes better in hopes of stopping nominees they truly disagree with, rather than obfuscating nominations simply for the sake of doing it.

Brittany Ballenstedt over at Wired Workplace has a good catch, noting that John Berry's reorganization of the Office of Personnel Management has elevated the agency's Chief Information Officer, in accordance with plans Berry laid out earlier in 2009. Given the botched Retirement Systems Modernization contract, an upgraded USAJobs, and the technical challenges that will be involved in any attempt at hiring reform, this seems like a savvy move--especially if it comes with expanded resources.

Nothing is guaranteed, of course. There's the budget process. There's the strong possibility that President Obama may go austere when it comes to federal funding next year. But given that what's happening with private-sector employees' salaries seems to influence what kind of federal pay raise the president seems comfortable asking for and what kind of raise lawmakers seem comfortable passing, there could be some good news for federal employees for 2011.

According to World At Work, the 2009/2010 US Compensation Planning Survey Update shows that only 14 percent of private-sector employers plan across-the-board pay freezes for 2010, down from 30 percent in 2009. For employers planning raises, the average raise is expected to be 2.7 percent. Not huge, but given that falling private-sector pay and rising joblesness were cited as reasons for the 2 percent civilian federal pay increase this year, 2011 might be a little brighter for feds.

Marc Ambinder, on a roll, reports that Congress, through the classified budgeting process, planned to slash at least $25 million in funding from the National Counterterrorism Center, the agency responsible for, among other things, maintaining a critical core database of terrorism suspects, including attempted bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I do find it really problematic when single incidents cause abrupt shifts in policy, or in treating certain issues as priorities, but this seems like a case where that budget might need to be revisited.

Marc points out that intelligence community leaders were pushing back against the funding cuts long before the attempted bombing. And Spencer Ackerman describes how "eight or nine" analysts in the center were being charged with sorting through, integrating, and drawing conclusions from millions of data points from the Middle East, which sounds like a misappropriation to resources to this non-intel expert. As policy decisions are made, it's important to determine whether Abdulmutallab was an exception or a symptom. In aviation security, he may have been an anomaly, but in intelligence-gathering, he may have been a symptom of an over-taxed system. Answering those questions will be key to determining the policy choices that result from his attempt at a terrorist attack.

The sad news that a shooter had killed one federal employee and wounded another at a Las Vegas courthouse yesterday got a bit of clarification today as the Las Vegas Sun reported that the gunman had been in a protracted dispute with the Social Security Administration over his benefits, which were being reduced after he moved from California to Nevada, where rates are lower.

I want to say first that obviously frustration with a government agency is no excuse for homicide. Murder is never the answer to anything. And government procedures obviously aren't responsible for the violent actions of a deranged individual. Johnny Lee Wicks and no one else is responsible for the murder he committed yesterday.

But the story of Johnny Lee Wicks' dispute with the Social Security Administration does illustrate how confusing agency procedures can be--and perhaps some areas for all federal agencies that provide benefits to focus on. First, if you aren't already a federal employee, fluctuating benefits payments based on locality may be unfamiliar and confusing--and definitely upsetting if you learn that moving is going to cut the amount you receive each month, $974, by $317. Making those potential fluctuations clear to new benefits recipients seems like an absolutely critical thing to do to avoid later misunderstandings. Second, Wicks was informed that he had to repay funds that he in fact did not owe the government. Obviously mistakes happen, but it's an important reminder that, especially when dealing with low-income recipients, mistakes like that may be devastating, and double-checking is just good practice. And finally, Wicks filed a lawsuit against SSA, only to see it dismissed because he hadn't exhausted his administrative appeals. For someone who doesn't have extensive experience with the federal system, administrative appeals may seem confusing and unfamiliar, especially in comparison to a lawsuit. Of course, it's not in an agency's interest to see judgments against it. But in the public interest, it does make sense to make appeals processes as open and as navigable as is humanely possible.

More sad news today, as a gunman opened fire at a federal building in downtown Las Vegas, wounding a deputy U.S. Marshal and killing a court officer. The gunman is dead, and his motivations are unknown, although law enforcement officials seem to believe he acted alone. Because it's a courthouse, it's impossible to say whether the gunman was motivated by malice towards the federal government, a grievance motivated by a court case or general animus towards the legal system, or whether the target was entirely random. Either way, it's a tragedy for those affected, and a reminder that security at federal buildings is no meaningless ritual.

I got the sad news this morning that Melissa Turley, a reporter for LRP Publications, who covered the same federal workforce beat that I did for a variety of publications in the company, passed away on December 16. I wanted to extend my condolences, and the sympathies of all of us here at Government Executive, to her family, and to her coworkers at LRP.

The federal workforce beat is a small place. You spend years going to the same events with the same small group of people, you end up getting to know them, or at least a good sense of them. And even though you're competitors, it's a collegial group. Melissa was an excellent reporter, who regularly asked questions I wished I'd thought of. Those of us who regularly saw her at the Office of Personnel Management, or Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board meetings, or on the Hill, will miss her.

I feel like the troubled nomination of Transportation Security Administration director Errol Southers has come to represent some of the grand problems with the nominations process in the first place. First, there's the problem of vetting. You want to make sure someone a) has no blemishes on their record and b) isn't concealing any blemishes on their record that you weren't able to find, because nobody loves surprises. Second, you want nominations to be made promptly and to move along as smoothly and as quickly as prudent. Othewise, you'll face a crisis in a leaderless agency, and you'll be forced to rush along a nomination that may not actually be ready to survive scrutiny.

In a way, it seems like due diligence and all due speed are fundamentally incompatible, and I don't think the problem is entirely in the Senate, though the procedural issues surely are significant. Is the solution larger, more aggressive transition teams? Possibly. But two and a half months isn't much time, no matter how many people you have working assessing agencies and candidates to run them, to gather information, synthesize it, and draw good conclusions. Maybe it's time to move the presidential transition back to March.