We feature many contributors on Breaking Gov. It’s not everyday, however, that one of our contributors ops to take a leave in order to run for Congress.
James Windle, who has written passionately about the fine points of federal spending for Breaking Gov since its launch nearly a year ago, is doing just that. Keep reading →
Little doubt remains that the Pentagon budget will flatten or contract in coming years. Scaling back on performance and adopting a more austere approach to meeting the country’s evolving defense needs are viewed as a necessary consequence.
It is less understood that defense spending has experienced price inflation that dwarfs other industries and the economy as a whole. Keep reading →
Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel is expected to release the details this week of a long-awaited digital strategy document, laying out his vision and direction for how federal agencies should expect to use information and mobile technologies moving into the future.
Agency CIOs and others who’ve seen the document aren’t saying what’s in it. And VanRoekel didn’t tip his hand Sunday evening during a keynote speech to a group of government and contracting executives gathered in Baltimore to attend the Government Information Technology Executive Council (GITEC) summit. Keep reading →
Verizon’s plans to eliminate unlimited use plans should accelerate the federal government’s push to leverage Uncle Sam’s buying power to get lower prices and enhanced services from the carriers and the device manufacturers, a federal IT marketplace expert said Friday.
According to a CNET report, Verizon Wireless officials on Thursday clarified plans to discontinue unlimited data plans, saying customers could keep their existing unlimited data plans if they keep their existing device or buy a new device at the full retail cost of the smartphone. In other words, the report states, if a customer renews a contract and purchases a subsidized phone, they would lose the option to keep the unlimited plan. Keep reading →
House Speaker John Boehner warned Tuesday that he won’t permit another increase in the debt ceiling without a larger amount of spending cuts and reforms approved in tandem.
“When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase. This is the only avenue I see … to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance,” Boehner said at a fiscal summit sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, according to prepared remarks. Keep reading →
The House voted Wednesday to eliminate the detailed surveys of America that have been conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau since the nation’s earliest days. Keep reading →
This is an installment in a series of columns that originally appeared at Recovery.gov about the ongoing efforts of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and its oversight of the $840 billion Recovery program.
The Department of Energy is a major player in the $840 billion economic stimulus program. Indeed, the Department has received more than $35 billion to support science, energy and environmental projects along with the authority to make or guarantee another $52 billion in energy-related loans. Put simply, that amount of funding makes the Energy Department one of the largest federal agency recipients of Recovery Act funds. Keep reading →
The Swiss Army Knife is a novel invention, a single pocket-sized device that includes everything from a standard knife blade and scissors to corkscrews and laser pointers. What it makes up for in versatility, however, it lacks in effectiveness – the functions themselves are never as good as actual scissors or laser pointers.
The same rule applies to federal systems administrators (sysadmins), who now serve agencies as a professional “Swiss Army Knives.” Thanks to budget cuts and decreasing staffing levels, federal sysadmins have been pushed into more and more roles, including security specialist, storage manager, virtualization manager and many more. Keep reading →
Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel speaks with InformationWeek Government Editor John Foley at Thursday’s event.
Having launched a formal strategy on the concept yesterday, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel offered examples Thursday morning of how shared IT services will free up valuable resources across government agencies. Keep reading →
Mobile technology has joined cybersecurity, controlling costs, human capital and central agency policy on the list of top concerns that keep federal chief information officers awake at night, according to a newly-released survey of federal chief information officers released today by the trade group TechAmerica.
Based on in-depth interviews with more than 40 federal CIOs and their deputies, the latest annual survey finds that cybersecurity ranks as the Number 1 concern for CIOs this year, even as budget constraints now dictate how CIOs are moving forward to meet agency IT demands. Keep reading →