Cutting the candidate pool may be hurting your agency’s chances of recruiting a top-quality acquisition work force. And if you eliminate people of certain backgrounds, you’ll shrink that candidate pool and maybe lose a chance to hire some people who could really help you. Steve Kelman, professor of Public Management at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former administrator in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, is writing about a strong acquisition workforce on his Lectern blog. He says his priorities for the ideal skill set have changed.

The Defense Department wants your help in cutting the more than 400 regulations that govern how it buys products and services. DoD has a request for information asking for recommendations on which regulations are out of date or duplicative. Federal News Radio’s executive editor Jason Miller shared details on the RFI in this week’s edition of Inside the Reporter’s Notebook.

Today isn’t President’s Day. So the question becomes: why are you really off work today? Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey writes about it in his column today. It’s titled “In Praise of Millard Fillmore” and it does have something to do with Presidents.

Job security might take a big hit at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Congress is considering a law to give VA leaders the authority to fire members of the Senior Executive Service fast.

President Obama signs the debt limit increase bill and the military retiree pension fix bill. The debt limit was the last crisis legislation on Congress’s agenda. After three years or more of deadlines and countdowns, a little streak of normalcy is returning to the Hill. David Hawkings is senior editor at Roll Call and host of the Hawkings Here blog.