Federal Drive Show Blog – July 2, 2013

Former President Richard Nixon famously said the military draft could not “be squared with our whole concept of liberty, justice and equality under the law … and the only way to stop the inequities would be to stop using the system.” It may be hard to believe, but 40 years ago today the all-volunteer military was born. The Army is commemorating this milestone all month. Major General Thomas Seamands, director of military personnel in the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff, joined Tom to discuss it.

The House and the Senate are debating how private information is shared or if it should be — especially in the aftermath of revelations that the National Security Agency has been collecting cell phone and Internet data on private communications in its PRISM program. The debate now on the Hill is over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act (CISPA). Jennifer Martinez, a staff writer at The Hill, joined Tom to discuss what’s likely to happen with the bill.

Federal agencies and their contractors are like the yin and yang of government. Neither can live without the other. But flat budgets and sequestration have been tough on everybody. Service contractors have been the object of a lot of attention by White House policymakers and Congress. To gauge the temperature, Tom spoke with Ken Asbury, the president and CEO of CACI International.

Federal employees can now slide into retirement rather than plunging in. Under a new law, eligible federal employees can work part-time while getting half of their retirement benefits. Tammy Flanagan, senior benefits director for the National Institute of Transition Planning, has heard all the questions about the new part-time retirement option. She joined Tom with some answers.

How big is a small business? How can you be small but still be big? It’s an important and complicated question for federal contracting. Recently the Small Business Administration hit a milestone in a several-year effort to revise the size standards for small businesses in a wide range of industries. For the inside story in how these decisions are made, Tom spoke to Dr. Khem Sharma, supervisory economist and chief of the SBA’s Office of Size Standards.