Economy, Starting Over, and Taking PART

Taking Time, Letting it Work

President Bush gave a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce this morning, talking about the government’s response to the financial markets crisis.

Click to hear the speech

Starting Over for the Right Results

The Office of Personnel Management is starting over on the contract to produce a benefits calculator, after announcing yesterday at a news conference that the RetireEZ program is moving ahead without contractor Hewitt. Deputy OPM Director Howard Weizmann talked about what’s going right with the RetireEZ program. Federal News Radio’s Max Cacas was at the news conference, and told me what the problems were, and where OPM is going next (see more of Max’s coverage here).

Click to hear Director Weizmann

Click to hear the interview with Max Cacas

Lessons Learned

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Leavitt was a witness at a Senate Banking Committee hearing yesterday about the credit and lending crunch. Chairman Christopher Dodd asked him, and some of the hearing’s other witnesses, about how the crunch started and how another one can be prevented.

Click to watch the entire hearing

Bringing in the Little Guns

The US Agency for International Development is putting out the call for the Development 2.0 Challenge. Wesley Wilson, head of the Global Development Commons program for USAID, gave us the details for the challenge, and why they’re bypassing the “big guys.”

Click to hear the interview

PART Time Employees

Keep it, trash it, or somewhere in between? Many people are asking that question about the Performance Assessment Rating Tool. Joe Ferrara, Associate Dean of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and a former SESer at the Pentagon, discussed the merits and drawbacks of PART, and what a new administration might want to keep or change.

Click to hear the interview

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