Federal workers have weathered a two-year pay freeze, increased health insurance premiums, and threats of more cuts from Republicans.
Now their jobs are in jeopardy. Some 277,000 workers — 14% of the federal work force — could lose their jobs in the next 12 months if the U.S. cannot avert the so-called fiscal cliff, according to a study by the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.
economy
For all the discussion about the economy in last night’s presidential debate and on the campaign trail, one key topic that the incumbent and his challenger have largely been silent about is what to do about the once-mighty engine of housing in America’s economy – and how it might get stoked once again.
As our AOL colleague Teke Wiggin, at AOL Real Estate, notes: Keep reading →
The national debt problem – already bad at about $15.4 trillion — is probably worse than reported. That’s the latest according to a new study on the debt by the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche, a document that is designed to wake people up to the fact that the debt is whittling away the government’s ability to innovate, construct and grow.
The study found that because of overly optimistic projections, the federal debt is probably much deeper. Keep reading →
This story originally appeared at GovWin.com.
For the past year I have been offering tips and insights into the process of commercial finance for government contractors. Even as the economy remained in a stall at the beginning of 2011, many agencies continued to rely on the deliberate capabilities of their contractors to keep the wheels of progress moving. To be sure, the howls of the few who decry the bold work being done day in and day out by dedicated public servants would become earth shattering were they to stop providing critical care to this struggling economy. Keep reading →
This column originally appeared at GovWin.com.
On September 14, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Jacob Lew issued a formal memorandum to all government agencies to speed up payments to their vendors. This measure, as part of the Prompt Payment Act (PPA), is helpful even though it appears on the surface to be targeted toward helping the struggling economy. Keep reading →
Innovation is an essential ingredient to growing economies and living standards, but not for growing jobs, former Federal Reserve System Chairman Dr. Alan Greenspan said at a conference on innovation and technology in Washington this morning.
In a wide-ranging set of remarks, Greenspan also said that he did not think the U.S. economy would slip into a double-dip recession, but that underlying uncertainty among corporations and households and mounting concerns about the ability of European banks to deal with sovereign debts is having a direct effect on productivity growth. Keep reading →