Budget to be released Feb. 13
January 23rd, 2012 | 2013 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Office of Management and Budget just confirmed to Federal Times that the fiscal 2013 budget will be released Feb. 13.
An administration official said Feb. 13 was chosen “based on the need to finalize decisions and technical details of the document.”
The budget usually comes out the first Monday in February, which would be Feb. 6. Until today, reporters had been hearing rumors that the White House would stick to that traditional schedule.
NARFE: Don’t make feds the ‘whipping boy’ in deficit debate
May 26th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
Margaret Baptiste, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, just put out a statement urging senators to oppose a spending bill amendment that would freeze federal salaries. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., want to cover the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan war spending by eliminating expenses such as federal civilian raises and bonuses. Their proposal — as well as a House bill also targeting the 2011 raise — would not affect military service members. Baptiste said:
We believe it is wrong to single out federal workers for cuts that others serving our country are not being asked to make. More specifically, why would the Congress take a punitive action against the thousands of federal civilian employees who are working alongside their uniformed colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan by requiring them to forgo a small salary increase to partially pay for the wars they are helping to win?
It’s also a mistake, Baptiste said, to think of the civil service as a cost burdening the nation instead of a resource to invest in:
Civil service pay and benefits have been a perennial target of budgeteers and “bureaucrats” have long been an easy “whipping boy” for voters. If we are to make wise choices about putting our fiscal house in order, members of Congress and the public need to be educated about the invaluable contributions made to our country by Americans who devote their careers to the public service.
The drive to strike the 2011 pay raise seems to be picking up steam. HR 5382, a bill sponsored by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., that would cancel the proposed 1.4 percent raise, is likely to come up for a vote tomorrow. A vote on the McCain and Coburn amendment hasn’t been scheduled yet, but also could come soon.
Tags: 2011 pay freeze, budget, federal salaries, GOP, pay raise, YouCut
McCain, Coburn: Freeze feds’ salaries to pay for wars
May 26th, 2010 | Congress | Posted by Stephen Losey
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz, and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., today filed amendments to the Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental spending bills that seek to offset its costs by cutting spending elsewhere — and feds aren’t going to like what they’ve got in mind.
McCain and Coburn want to save about $2.6 billion by freezing federal employees’ raises, bonuses and other salary increases for one year. This comes on the heels of their House counterparts’ move to put federal raises on the chopping block as part of their YouCut program.
They also seek to eliminate non-essential government travel ($10 billion over 10 years), collect unpaid taxes from federal employees ($3 billion), dispose of unneeded government property ($15 billion), reduce government printing and publishing costs ($4.4 billion over 10 years), eliminate bonuses for poor-performing government contractors ($8 billion over 10 years), and auction off unused and unneeded government equipment ($250 million over 10 years).
All in all, McCain and Coburn say the proposed cuts would cover $120 billion in war spending costs, although it’s worth noting that $33 billion of those savings would come over 10 years. But is the tax thing really fertile ground for finding new money? The IRS already levies feds’ salaries to recover those funds under the Federal Payment Levy Program, and apparently there’s a good bit of turnover on the list, which suggests tax-delinquent feds do eventually pay off their debts.
So feds, what do you think? Sound off below, or shoot me an e-mail at slosey@federaltimes.com.
Tags: 2011 pay freeze, budget, federal salaries, GOP, pay raise, war spending, YouCut
GOP’s YouCut targets federal pay raises
May 25th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
The House GOP’s YouCut program this week seeks to put next year’s proposed 1.4 percent civilian raise on the chopping block. And so far, it’s the top choice to be cut — House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., said today that 40 percent of the nearly 218,000 votes cast so far this week were in favor of eliminating the 2011 raise. (People must really want to keep those mohair subsidies.)
YouCut combines the democratic ideals of American Idol with the excitement of a Heritage Foundation seminar. Each week, Republicans propose five programs to be cut, and then let people vote online or via text message on which one they want to slash. The GOP then tries to force a vote on the cuts on the House floor, but lawmakers last week voted 240 to 177 to keep the first YouCut “winner,” the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program’s $2.5 billion emergency fund.
Cantor said the proposal to cut the 2011 raise could be brought to the House floor this week. Eliminating pay raises would save $2 billion next year and, if it is continued, $30 billion over the next decade, he said. ”This vote won’t be easy for everyone, but it is exactly the kind of choice we must begin to make to get us off the path towards financial ruin,” he said.
The proposal would not affect the military’s pay raise. The Obama adminstration wants to give service members a 1.4 percent raise, but some lawmakers want to bump it up to 1.9 percent.
This is sure to increase the political temperature surrounding federal raises, and may make it difficult for lawmakers to support pay parity, at the very least. What do you think about YouCut taking aim at federal salaries?
Video of Cantor after the jump:
Tags: 2011 pay freeze, budget, federal salaries, GOP, spending, YouCut
Gates on Pentagon budget: “The gusher has been turned off”
May 8th, 2010 | Defense | Posted by Stephen Losey
Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a tough message earlier today for his department’s bureaucracy (not to mention its contractors): The spending spree is over. Read an account of his Kansas speech and some of his planned changes at our sister publication, Military Times, here. And the Washington Post’s article has this interesting detail on contracting:
Among Gates’s apparent targets for major cuts are the private contractors the Pentagon has hired in large numbers over the past decade to take on administrative tasks that the military used to handle. The defense secretary estimated that this portion of the Pentagon budget has grown by as much as $23 billion, a figure that does not include the tens of billions of dollars spent on private firms supporting U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The defense contractors, who populate new office towers throughout Washington’s suburbs and have been a major driver of the local economy, are a significant source of budgetary bloat, Gates said. “We ended up with contractors supervising other contractors — with predictable results,” he said in the speech Saturday.
The WaPo said Gates is prepared to stay on past this year to make sure his changes stick. Since defense spending is often viewed as sacrosanct in American politics, this could be the first shot fired in a major budgetary war.
Tags: budget, contractors, insourcing, Pentagon, Robert Gates
Budget guru says to expect more CRs
April 8th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Rebecca Neal
Agency budgets will stay flat for the next few years as the government faces an $11 trillion deficit, presenting fewer opportunities for vendors to do business with agencies.
Vendors can separate themselves from the competition by identifying how they can save agencies money, said budget expert Stan Collender at INPUT’s Federal Market View 2010 conference today in Falls Church, Va. Vendors and contractors who know how to sell themselves to agencies can carve out a piece of the narrowing contracting pie, he sad.
You should expect extreme scrutiny on the programs you care about. There’s almost no way around it – there will be cuts and where there are increases, they will not be as big as in the past.”
Collender, managing director for Qorvis Communications, also said vendors should expect yet another continuing resolution for fiscal 2011. With politicians facing press to cut spending while avoiding impacting popular programs, it’s safer for members of Congress to vote on omnibus spending bills and continuing resolutions instead of individual appropriations bills.
We may be very much in the era when individual appropriations are not enacted. I don’t mean not enacted in time, I mean not enacted. Period.”
Tags: budget
Budget update: Civilian combat pay provisions still to come
February 3rd, 2010 | Defense | Posted by Stephen Losey
Federal Times reported last week that the 2011 budget would propose a standardized slate of pay and benefits for federal civilians deployed to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s apparently still coming, but it’s not here yet — the budget documents OMB released Monday contain no incentive package proposals.
The Pentagon just sent this statement to Federal Times after we inquired about the missing proposals: “We are still working on the standardized combat pay provisions package for submission into the fiscal year 2011 budget.”
Tags: budget, combat pay, Defense Department, war zone benefits
More 1.4% pay raise reax: ‘Better than no increase at all’
February 1st, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
Reactions are starting to roll in on what may be the smallest pay raise in the General Schedule’s history. The three largest federal unions applauded the White House’s return to pay parity, but objected that the modest pay raise would do little to close the pay gap between federal and private-sector workers. The American Federation of Government Employees, National Treasury Employees Union and the National Federation of Federal Employees all pledged to push Congress to increase the administration’s modest pay raise.
Here’s a sampling of comments:
At best, 1.4 percent is a modest adjustment. But in this economy, a modest increase is better than no increase at all.
- NFFE National President William Dougan
Tags: 2011 pay raise, budget, Unions
GPO to send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card
January 12th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
A GPO employee oversees the printing of the fiscal 2010 budget last year/Photo courtesy of Government Printing Office
Nobody can say that the Government Printing Office lacks a sense of humor. After FedLine blogged White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ joke yesterday about sending the federal budget to Kinko’s — now called FedEx Office — GPO today said it will send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card.
Technically, it’s a GPOExpress card. Those cards allow federal employees to place a small-scale printing order at any FedEx Office branch and net the government up to 70 percent off of the cost. Public Printer Bob Tapella, who runs the agency, said GPOExpress has helped feds place more than 40,000 printing orders since the program was created in 2005.
But when it comes to the federal budget, GPO said that’s handled in-house. GPO said its printers and the Office of Management and Budget are sometimes still finalizing the budget the night before its release.
“GPO obviously does not take offense to Mr. Gibbs’ tongue-in-cheek comments on the printing of the budget,” Tapella said.
Tags: budget, fun, GPO, Kinko's, Robert Gibbs
The federal budget, brought to you by Kinko’s?
January 11th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared to announce a new outsourcing initiative at today’s press conference:
MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into details and specifics on a budget that will be released at a later day.
Q: It’s at the printers?
MR. GIBBS: And when it comes back from Kinko’s, we’ll be able to talk about it. It’s not really at Kinko’s, though, I was just — go ahead.
That sound you just heard was the Government Printing Office having a collective heart attack. Who knows what would happen to them if the White House actually started sending an intern down to the corner Kinko’s with all 2,500 pages of the budget on a thumb drive.
Tags: budget, fun, GPO, Kinko's, Robert Gibbs