Federal Drive

• NASA’s overall impact on the nation’s economy

  NASA has been busy on a program to use the moon as a launch pad to Mars. It will spend a lot of money to do so. The agency wanted to get an idea of the economic impact of this program.

• Coronavirus has boosted federal contract spending

  The pandemic has damaged the economy. No question about it. But it's also stimulated record levels of federal contract spending.

• Has the pandemic set agencies back in the cybersecurity fight?

  When it comes to cybersecurity federal agencies, along with many large organizations and small ones, are still digging out of the cybersecurity hole.

• Federal executives, workers paint bleak picture of federal workforce

  In today's Federal Newscast, the Partnership for Public Service is sounding alarm bells over the state of the federal workforce ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

• Telework doesn’t suit every worker personality, environment

  Surveys showing how much people like teleworking have a flaw: The respondents are often self-selected telework enthusiasts.

• GAO takes on auditing the auditing of how SBA handled PPP checks

  The Director of GAO’s Financial Markets and Community Investment team, Bill Shear, spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin about what it's found so far.

• Younger feds maybe starting to question telework’s merits

  As the pandemic and teleworking drag on, people stuck at home are starting to discover the secondary effect of isolation from coworkers.

• Congressmen wonder why VA Secretary taking so many trips to battleground states

  In today's Federal Newscast, top Democrats on the House and Senate VA Committees say Secretary Robert Wilkie is using government time and taxpayer money to take politically motivated trips to states key to the upcoming presidential and Senate races.

• IRS drafting plan to decommission legacy systems as part of enterprise cloud migration

  IRS officials said the strategy to decommission its legacy systems is taking shaping shape in concert with the work of the Enterprise Digitalization and Case Management Office the agency stood up in July.

• The need for real digital transformation

  When it comes to 21st century technology, change has become more of a constant than ever before. It is so perpetual, in fact, private and public companies realize that “digital transformation” is not an option, but a necessity.

• Time for a little human centered design

  Two agencies show they take customer experience seriously.

• All eyes on the Senate, will any other work get done?

  The Senate is almost totally occupied with Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, but this debate also crowds out other important business in a compressed time period.

• GSA has new innovative acquisition vehicle on the horizon

  The General Services Administration has gone underwater with a reworked small business acquisition vehicle. Dubbed Polaris, the proposed vehicle is a replacement for the failed Alliant SB-2.

• Microsoft looks to eliminate malware that could disrupt elections

  The cybersecurity community is facing a cybersecurity challenge with Trickbot, which threatens to disrupt the upcoming elections. Now Microsoft is taking on the task.