Budget
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The U.S. Postal Service's worsening financial situation led Postmaster General Pat Donahoe to announce last week the agency would end Saturday mail delivery beginning in August. But lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee were divided over Donahoe's announcement. The postmaster general told the committee during a hearing Wednesday the decision was necessary to save $2 billion a year and to begin shoring up the service's funding shortfalls.
February 13, 2013 -
AFGE, AFSCME rally against the potential cuts from sequestration as part of their week-long legislative conference. Union members are meeting with lawmakers to ensure they understand the broader impact cuts due to sequestration would have on the nation and the economy.
February 13, 2013 -
Can you take vacation if you are furloughed? Answer: No! What about sick leave? Only if you promise to die to prove you are really sick. And to cap out the week, an asteroid the size of a small skyscraper is coming very close to Earth on Friday, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.
February 13, 2013 -
President Obama used his State of the Union speech Tuesday night to reiterate common management themes that have been part of the administration's push over the last four years.
February 12, 2013 -
As sequestration draws nearer, contractor groups have pointed to alarming studies that show the 9 percent in across-the-board Defense cuts would throw at least 1 million people out of work and potentially cripple the defense and aerospace industries. But in a new report, the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit group which advocates reducing military spending, presented evidence that far fewer defense-sector jobs would be lost than industry has claimed and that defense companies would likely be able to absorb the defense cuts.
February 12, 2013 -
News and buzz from the last two weeks includes a new legislative proposal from Rep. Darrell Issa on suspension and debarment and round two of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
February 11, 2013 -
In an analysis prepared for the American Federation of Government Employees, contracting expert Charles Tiefer said that agency managers have a number of tools at their disposal to legally scale back service-contract spending and that doing so would be preferable to federal furloughs.
February 11, 2013 -
In the past, when federal workers were furloughed they were told to stop working and go home until further notice. If you were out of town, you were to return ASAP, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. But what happens if the furlough is one day per week and you are on an assignment to Atlanta or Antarctica?
February 11, 2013 -
The Air Force's long-range planning and modernization takes back seat to preparations for near-term crises, including contingency plans to scale back civilian workforce. Civilian furloughs would be "breach of faith," Air Force says.
February 08, 2013 -
OMB details hundreds of thousands of furloughs and cuts to nearly every agency program. Danny Werfel, OMB controller, said the effective percentage cut to each civilian agency would be about 9 percent and 13 percent for DoD over the next seven months.
February 08, 2013 -
On this week's Bloomberg Government show, nine programs that make ideal targets for budget cuts. February 7, 2013
February 07, 2013 -
DoD's 2014 budget will ask Congress for a 1 percent increase in military pay, down slightly from previous projections.
February 07, 2013 -
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the service can no longer afford to delivery first class mail six-days a week. He said cutting back by one day a week would save about $2 billion a year. USPS still would have a $14 billion deficit and needs help from Congress to address other fiscal challenges.
February 07, 2013 -
Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have proposed an alternative to the automatic budget cuts set to go into effect next month that includes reducing the size of the federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition.
February 06, 2013 -
Are you sick of hearing the F-word coming out of Washington? Would you offer yourself up as buyout bait? If the answer to either is yes, check out Senior Correspondent Mike Causey's Federal Report for the latest forecast.
February 06, 2013