Federal Drive

Tuesday Morning Federal Newsstand

Written by Ruben Gomez and Tom Temin Edited by Suzanne Kubota This morning’s federal news as heard on WFED: The Treasury Department is borrowing money at ...

Federal News Network Staff

August 4, 2009 7:58 am

3 min read

Written by Ruben Gomez and Tom Temin
Edited by Suzanne Kubota

This morning’s federal news as heard on WFED:

The Treasury Department is borrowing money at a slightly lower level than it expected. The reason? Partly because banks have repaid billions they received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the Wall Street Journal. Treasury reported it will borrow about $406 billion in this quarter, $109 billion less than it had estimated. Not that we’re out of the woods. By the end of the 2009 fiscal year, the government will have borrowed $1.4 trillion.

If you’ve ever given out bonuses to contractors that perform poorly, the White House wants you to stop that. The FederalTimes reports the administration is working on a new rule aimed at curbing the practice. In June, the Government Accountability Office said that agencies are wasting millions of dollars in bonuses to under-performing contractors. Expect the new rule within two months.

You made money in your TSP during July. All 10 funds posted gains! The I fund moved forward the most, adding nearly 10 percent. The G fund showed the smallest gain, less than one percent. But still, most funds haven’t recovered from last year’s market downturn.

Since passage of the stimulus bill in February, most of the money spent by federal agencies so far has gone to just 17 of the largest contractors. They received more than $1.6 billion in Recovery Act contracts. GovExec reports, that’s more than all small businesses combined. A thousand of them received about $1.4 billion. Most of the contracts were issued by the Energy Department for construction, environmental cleanup projects at its laboratories.

If you Twitter about the government, the government might be following. The Air Force monitored blogs and Twitter postings during that April flyover of New York City by Air Force One. New Yorkers were at first frightened, then angry. And said so in rapid fire twitter messages. NextGov reports, internal e-mails from the Defense Department now show that Air Force officials were worried about the public relations fallout from the flight, which was designed to get fresh images of the presidents plane.

You might have to travel a bit further to the nearest Post Office. Facing declining mail volumes and a financial crisis, the Postal Service is looking at consolidating or closing hundreds of local facilities. Postal officials sent a list of nearly 700 candidates for closing or consolidation for review by the Postal Regulatory Commission for review. The post office will lose $7 billion loss this year despite a 2-cent rate increase on first class letters.

Alexandria, Virginia and Washington D.C. are both under consideration as locations for trials of detainees after the jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba closes. Facing a January deadline, the Obama administration is debating different plans for putting these particular suspects on trial: One plan is use of big-city courtrooms locally and in New York versus a superjail in the Midwest.

School closing policy for flu outbreaks is under review by the Obama administration. New guidelines would scale back when the federal government recommends closing schools in response to the swine flu sources say. Last spring, several local high schools were shut at the first sign of the H1N1 virus. This fall, the administration wants to limit closing recommendations to when more than just a few students or teachers get sick.

President Obama turns 48 today. That makes him America’s third youngest president. It’s a working lunch as he meets with Senate Democrats to discuss health care, the economy and Cash for Clunkers.

Other Stories We’re Following

42% of ‘new’ contracting officers lured from other agencies (FederalTimes)

SSA Grants Transit Benefits to Capital-Area Workers (FederalDaily)

GSA to spend $395M on new D.C.-area leases (WashingtonBusinessJournal)

Civilians to see increase in post allowance (Stars&Stripes)

DOD rethinking social media access (FCW)

GAO finds gaps in HUD IT management (FCW)

Bill Clinton in NKorea seeking reporters’ release