Time off used to be a good thing before the impact of sequestration. Now, federal employees are receiving mandatory time off because they’re being furloughed. This is happening across many agencies with employees being furloughed at least once a week. So how is the work completed? For insight, Tom and Emily turned to John Palguta. He is the vice president for Policy at the Partnership for Public Service.

Taking junkets at government expense and calling them site visits, hiring your wife to a sensitive position in your own office, paying employees to do your homework. Those would be enough to get most any federal manager fired. But what if it’s the inspector general whose doing all of that? In this Department of Homeland Security news brief sponsored by CenturyLink, Whistleblowers at DHS allege that’s exactly what’s going on with acting inspector general Charles Edwards. The group, Cause for Action, obtained a document under the Freedom of Information Act. Its executive director, Dan Epstein, joined Tom and Emily.

The passage of time has not diminished opposition to the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the closer the law gets to being fully implemented, the more opponents seem to fight it. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) says he’s recruited more than a dozen fellow GOP senators who are willing to shut down the government to stop the health care law from going into effect. The Hill reporter Alex Bolton joined Tom and Emily.

Top government officials from homeland security agencies and industry leaders met for the 2013 Aspen Security Forum. They gathered to discuss cybersecurity, counterterrorism strategies, intelligence and other ways to protect to the U.S. Jane Harman is the director, president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Center of International Scholars, and Raj De is the general counsel for the National Security Agency. Together, they discussed the NSA’s metadata program.

Agencies may need to try harder to prepare promising employees for the executive ranks. Global management firm McKinsey and Company and the Partnership for Public Service have released a report. They argue that agencies need a comprehensive strategy to developing leaders into governmentwide assets. Nora Gardner is a partner at McKinsey and Company’s DC office, and a leader of their Talent and Leadership practice.

The Small Business Administration is rolling out new rules to help small federal contractors. The latest proposed rule would requires prime contractors to pay their subs on time or tell the government why they did not. The rule also requires contracting officers to monitor what is going on with small businesses working on federal projects as subs. It’s part of a series of rules to put the 2010 Small Business Jobs Act into practice. Tom and Emily spoke with Procurement Attorney Joe Petrillo for analysis and also Ken Dodds, director of government contracting at the Small Business Administration.