Weekly Round-up - July 30, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• Hopefully, the former.  On Mashable, Zachery Sniderman lists four ways various governments are using social media "for better or worse"
• I bet they're still not working remotely.  Ethan Klapper reports on White House staff holding "Twitter office hours."
• And was this thier mouse? Marine General James Cartwright said that "A long-standing reliance on proprietary technology solutions and antiquated acquisition rules have left the Defense Department "pretty much in the stone age as far as IT is concerned," reports AOL.gov

Dr. John Bordeaux

• Why does anyone trust the CBO? Imagine if all of us were able to see these data and make adjustments, test assumptions.  What would this mean for the democratic process, and polling?
• Why are we still educating our young based on an agrarian calendar? Is it time to think differently?
• Levers for "smart power" take a budgetary hit, at least in House markup.
• Congress is quick to adopt social media, but do they use it to 'get the message out,' or to listen and engage their constituents?

Dan Chenok

• ACLU report indicates less concern with cloud computing from a privacy perspective.
• TechAmerica issues report on steps that government and industry can take to best to leverage the cloud.
• Better data needed on impact of Federal data center consolidation, OMB and GAO agree.

John Kamensky

• Last Day! Have You Submitted Your Cost-Saving Ideas Yet? Today (July 29) is the last day in the third annual SAVE Award contest. So far, I’ve gotten reminder emails from Jeff Zients, Vice President Joe Biden, and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley to submit my ideas. You can too at:
• CFOs Get Creative About Finding Savings. In a story by Federal Times’ Sean Reilly, agency chief financial officers are starting to “get creative.” For example the CFO at the Federal Emergency Management Agency uncovered $4 billion in unobligated funds; the Commerce CFO found thousands of unused cell phones. OMB has also directed the CFO community to pare administrative costs by $2.1 billion in the coming year. Each CFO is to submit three initiatives to OMB by July 31st (I guess they work on Sundays).
• GSA Will Soon Charge Employees for Parking. The Carter Administration tried it, but failed because of a backlash by employees. Will it work this time? According to Fed News Radio, GSA will start charging its own employees for parking in their buildings, starting August 1st. Federal Times’ Andy Medici says that this will amount to $3,024 a year for parking at GSA’s headquarters building. . . remember, feds have a three-year pay freeze, too! 
• It’s not just the Debt Ceiling Anymore. The inability to act and the austerity push in government is coming in many different forms. Here are three highlights for the week:

1. The FAA’s authorization lapsed last week and 4,000 employees have been furloughed. In addition, FAA can no longer collect an airline tax, so the government loses $30 million a day in revenues.
2. GovExec.com has a “helpful” countdown clock for the debt ceiling, and a count-up display on how much the government is losing each second by not collecting the FAA tax.
3. The Postal Service’s estimated $8 billion shortfall this year (following a similar shortfall last year) is leading to radical proposals, beyond just the controversial “no mail on Saturdays” to include closing more than 10 percent of all post offices nationwide . . . including the post office on Capitol Hill!

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