2013 federal budget

Why $1 Coins Place Hidden Tax On The Public

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President Obama’s new budget shows savings of $50 million annually by curtailing the production of unwanted $1 coins. As a former budget director for President Reagan, I know first-hand how difficult it is to cut spending and how important it is to guard against faddish programs that claim savings but actually add to federal spending and to the deficit – which is what you’d get if you let Congress replace the dollar bill with the dollar coin.

The latest proposals to do just that are all the more vexing, given that consumers overwhelmingly reject the dollar coin. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 13, 2012 at 8:20 AM

Technology To Boost Illegal Immigrant Investigations

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Proposed increases in federal technology spending aren’t just for back office operations; they’re also expected to help the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency track down illegal immigrants, weed out illegal job applicants and intercept would be terrorists.

Those are just some of the places where hikes in information technology spending in President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget would be directed, if approved by Congress. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 16, 2012 at 9:19 AM

Plying Through The 2013 Federal Budget

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The proposed Federal Budget released this past Monday to Congress for fiscal year 2013 is actually a collection of documents, assembled by the Office of Management and Budget and published digitally and in print by the Government Printing Office.

The document, as required by Congress, must show the current and projected condition of the U.S. Treasury at the end of the last completed fiscal year, the current fiscal year, and the next fiscal year if the proposed budget is carried out. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 15, 2012 at 12:39 PM

Mobile Version Of Federal Budget Draws Surprising Viewership

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The U.S. Government Printing Office reports that the mobile application it developed for this year’s release of the 2013 Federal Budget proposal to Congress drew 53,000 visits in the first 24 hours of being posted — a surprising volume given the arcane nature and scope of the annual budget document.

The GPO application, available at http://m.gpo.gov/budget, features mobile friendly text versions of the president’s budget message, along with additional commentaries on building the economy, cutting waste, reducing the deficit and investing in the future. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 15, 2012 at 11:35 AM

No Easy Option: Absorbing Budget Reductions Intelligently

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Today the public sector operates in an environment of shrinking budgets. That was certainly apparent in the latest federal budget proposal released this week and the new realities for federal spending agency officials now find themselves.

To meet budget caps and reduction targets, Congress, the White House, and federal departments often use across-the-board percentage reductions. This blunt instrument achieves broad goals without prescribing the specific activities to take the reduction. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 14, 2012 at 3:02 PM

Obama Proposes Big Budget Boost For NIST To Drive Advanced Research

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President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal calls for a significant boost in funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with the aim of supporting advanced manufacturing research and help reignite a crippled industry with technology support.

The budget proposal, released Monday, calls for $857 million, an increase of $106.2 million, or 14.1%, compared to FY 2012–an increase that is considered unusual given the cutbacks that most agencies have had to embrace in the coming fiscal year. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 13, 2012 at 4:46 PM