Congress

Has Anyone Seen The R&D Tax Credit?

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Our country has now been without a critical incentive for homegrown innovation for nearly four months. That is four months without an incentive for an inventor to take his emerging company to the next level. That is four months that technology firms have looked to other countries as options to invest their research and development dollars. That’s right- the United States has been without a Research and Development Tax Credit for more than a quarter of the year.

There has been lots of talk of the R&D tax credit but nothing has happened. President Obama has twice proposed strengthening and making permanent the research and development tax credit. Congress talks about spurring innovation and creating jobs. We are thrilled to hear all of this but it’s going to take action from both the Administration and Congress to make that happen. Keep reading →

 /  Published April 27, 2012 at 5:39 PM

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

Cyber Intelligence: White House Gets Senate’s Attention But Now What?

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It appears that all the expert cyber threat warnings and media coverage–and now a realistic cyber attack simulation on New York’s power grid–has gotten the attention of Washington.

In the latest example, according to an account published March 8 by Politico, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, during a classified briefing in the Office of Senate Security, showed lawmakers how a hacker could breach control systems of New York City’s electric system and trigger a ripple effect throughout the population and private sector. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 12, 2012 at 10:31 AM

Congress Key To Postal Service Debt To Taxpayers

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WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The Postal Service is facing such a cash crunch that it has a $12.1 billion loan outstanding from Treasury.
But taxpayers will be paid back, especially after Congress acts to help save the Postal Service, according to most experts.

 /  Published March 6, 2012 at 10:31 AM

GAO Report Finds Government Inefficiencies, Encourages Action

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A GAO report to Congress has identified several areas where the government duplicates efforts, creating unnecessary costs and inefficiencies, but also reflects an improvement over last year.

The 2012 Duplicative Program Report, recently released by the Government Accountability Office, identified 51 areas “where programs may be able to achieve greater efficiencies or become more effective in providing government services.” Keep reading →

 /  Published February 28, 2012 at 4:00 PM

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

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

Senate Cybersecurity Bill Could Revive Kill Switch, Crush Innovation

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COMMENTARY – Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are hell bent on implementing the recommendations of President Barack Obama’s Cyberspace Policy Review, in which the administration argued for a greater role for the Department of Homeland Security in securing the nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber attack.

And to prove how serious and misguided they are, some of these lawmakers like Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are about to introduce legislation that arguably will hurt innovation and jobs, and which may actually grant the DHS extraordinary regulatory powers that extend to the Internet. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 9, 2012 at 10:35 AM

CIA’s World Factbook: Intelligence For Every Thinker, Traveler, Soldier, Spy

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The Government Printing Office has just recently released its latest edition of the CIA’s World Factbook–which marks its 50th anniversary in 2012 for the classified version and more than 40 years of publishing the public version.

The 810-page public edition of the CIA’s World Factbook provides not only a timely and valuable source of global information, it also allows us a glimpse into the times and events that necessitated its production. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 2, 2012 at 8:09 AM

Google Responds To Congressional Concerns Over New Privacy Policy

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A senior Google executive issued new details today–and shared a letter sent to eight Congressmen, Jan. 30–in response to widespread concerns about Google’s plans to revise its privacy policy March 1.

Pablo Chavez, Google’s director for public policy, outlined what was changing at Google — “our privacy policies” — and what was not –“our privacy controls”– in a public policy blog posted Jan. 31. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 31, 2012 at 6:40 PM
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