January 5, 2009
 
A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.

1. Help the Poor by Revitalizing the Federal Workforce
2. Commerce Pick Richardson Withdraws, Citing N.M. Probe
3. Low-Profile Jobs That Will Stay That Way, if Obama Is Prudent
4. Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts

Help the Poor by Revitalizing the Federal Workforce

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity
By Max Stier

Nearly two-thirds of Americans report being "hurt" by the recession, but for the millions who live in poverty, the economic downturn has them not just feeling pain, but facing peril.

The primary safety net for those in poverty is our federal government, which provides many of them cash assistance, medical care, food stamps and housing. There is currently talk of an $800 billion stimulus package to spur an economic recovery, which is likely to include an extension of unemployment benefits and an increased investment in food stamps and Medicaid.

But delivering more money and services will not be enough. To maximize the help provided to America's least fortunate citizens, our government must have a deeply engaged and quality federal workforce to deliver those services more effectively.

The plain truth is that every single policy of President-elect Barack Obama's new administration, from the financial bailout of Wall Street to providing housing and low-income energy assistance to the poor, will be influenced by the people who have to execute those initiatives.

Our federal leaders have tended to emphasize policy to the exclusion of operations, and this has often been a recipe for failure. Good government and effective policies start with good people and good leaders. Today, we have a serious talent and leadership gap in our federal civil service.

Take the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Shaun Donovan, Obama's choice to be HUD secretary, will be at the center of efforts to solve a housing crisis that has dragged the nation into recession. One in 10 home loans is past due on payment or in foreclosure. There will be increased demand for public housing, Section 8 rental assistance for the poor and a growing homeless population.

At this perilous time, Donovan inherits a department that might best be described as rusted. It has the oldest workforce in government, with 26 percent of its employees set to retire by 2012, and many dysfunctional components.

HUD ranked 23 out of 30 large agencies in the 2007 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service, a sign of the department's internal problems. Employees gave HUD low marks for effective leadership, strategic management and matching the right talent to the right jobs.

That was true for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which ranked 186th of 222 units within various government agencies and departments in the Best Places survey. Medicaid is the health insurance program for the poor, and Medicare provides health coverage for the elderly and disabled. The Partnership's federal worker survey also gave low rankings for leadership and management to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service, which handles food stamps and the school lunch programs for low-income children.

Study after study has shown that leadership is the most critical factor in determining employee engagement and organizational effectiveness. However, leadership consistently ranks near the bottom in the list of 10 different workplace categories in the Best Places government rankings.

Among the challenges facing Donovan at HUD and his colleagues in the new administration will be the lack of managerial skills among some senior leaders and the need to expand the government's career talent pool to fill critical jobs.

Donovan knows the inner workings of HUD, which should give him a leg up in pinpointing areas that need to be strengthened and finding ways to revitalize the career workforce. And Obama seems aware that more is required than just smart policies and additional funding.

To read the entire article, click here.

 

Commerce Pick Richardson Withdraws, Citing N.M. Probe

The Washington Post
By Michael D. Shear and Carol D. Leonnig

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to be commerce secretary, withdrew from consideration yesterday, citing an ongoing federal "pay-to-play" investigation involving one of his political donors as a significant obstacle to his confirmation.

Richardson, 61, who competed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, becomes the first political casualty in Obama's Cabinet, and his withdrawal marked the first visible crack in what had been one of the smoothest presidential transitions in modern history.

The former energy secretary and U.N. ambassador under President Bill Clinton was positioned to become the highest-profile Hispanic in Obama's administration. But Richardson made it clear yesterday that he thought confirmation was far from a sure thing, even with Democrats firmly in control of the Senate.

"Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the President-elect and his administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done," Richardson said in a statement.

The New Mexico investigation, which began last summer, focuses on whether Richardson's office urged a state agency to hire a California firm as a result of generous contributions from the company and its president to political action committees established by the governor.

Richardson insisted that he and his staff "have acted properly in all matters" and predicted that the investigation would exonerate him. But he said the probe could take weeks or months, potentially holding up his Senate approval. Instead, Richardson said he will remain "in the job I love as governor of New Mexico."

He called Obama on Friday to advise him of his plans, and the president-elect accepted the decision "with deep regret," according to a statement issued yesterday. Aides said no one in Obama's transition pressured Richardson to drop out.

No clear replacement for Richardson at the Commerce Department emerged yesterday, but sources close to the transition said Obama would move quickly to find one.

A grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into whether CDR Financial Products received a contract with the New Mexico Finance Authority because of pressure from Richardson or other state employees. CDR made $1.48 million advising the authority on interest-rate swaps and refinancing of funds related to $1.6 billion in transportation bonds, state officials confirmed.

To read the entire article, click here.

 

Low-Profile Jobs That Will Stay That Way, if Obama Is Prudent

The Washington Post
By Paul C. Light

With his focus on a global economic crisis and a new war in the Middle East, the last thing Barack Obama needs early in his presidency is the distraction of a federal agency meltdown. But Obama must be mindful of a harsh truth of the office: that slip-ups in the most mundane of government responsibilities can prove calamitous for an unsuspecting administration.

And there is plenty of precedent for concern. The Bush administration is still criticized for its failure to react fast enough to Hurricane Katrina and spent much of the past eight years taking fire for shortcomings or failures at a host of agencies: the counterfeit Heparin that slipped through the Food and Drug Administration, the poisoned tomatoes and peppers that entered the food supply below the radar at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the aircraft groundings that followed the relaxation of inspection standards at the Federal Aviation Administration, and, worst of all, negligent care for veterans at military hospitals.

These meltdowns reflect a persistent disinvestment in the capacity of the federal government to execute the laws. Decades of benign and deliberate neglect have left the government without enough resources to do its job well, starting on the front lines where basic services are delivered.

The challenge is not to inventory the past failures, but to anticipate future problems that might capture the news cycle and knock the Obama administration off stride. As part of this exercise, here are 10 sub-Cabinet jobs responsible for agencies with checkered performance records that may yet put the Obama team in the cross hairs for failing to repair the federal bureaucracy.

1. Undersecretary of agriculture for food safety. This post is listed in the Council for Excellence in Government's Prune Book as one of the toughest jobs in government. Responsibilities include tracking produce, meat, poultry and liquid egg products and investigating specific problems. Recent meltdowns involved E. coli in hamburgers.

2. Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services. Listed in the Prune Book. Responsible for the $550 billion Medicare and Medicaid programs, including potential health-care reform. There has been progress in reducing error rates in these programs, but pressure for managing state cutbacks in Medicaid funding is growing.

3. Undersecretary of defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics. Responsible for acquisition of a new generation of military equipment and protection of the defense industrial base. Recent meltdowns included numerous cost overruns due to design of new weapons systems.

4. Assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Responsible for the military health system. Recent meltdown involved negligent medical care for Iraq war soldiers. Firings of key personnel may have resolved the problems, but gaps in response to delayed health problems persist.

5. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Responsible for protecting the food and drug supply, monitoring of new drugs and devices, oversight of clinical research, and possibly regulation of tobacco products. Recent meltdowns included contamination of counterfeit drugs imported from China and lack of coordination with the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

To read the entire article, click here.

 

Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts

The New York Times
By Peter Baker and Carl Hulse

President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories.

The overall economic package, of $675 billion to $775 billion, is taking shape as Mr. Obama arrived in Washington and planned to begin trying to build support in Congress and among the broader public for his approach to stimulating the economy. Mr. Obama, who flew to the capital on Sunday to join his family in a hotel suite while awaiting his inauguration, planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Monday and deliver a speech on Thursday laying the ground for his emerging economic program.

Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama's economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans on Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing criticism of what they describe as an open-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach.

Mr. Obama will use his public events this week to promise what one adviser called "radical reforms" to impose more control over the regular federal budget down the road. Among other areas, the president-elect will focus on changing Pentagon contracting and aid to corporate America, advisers said. He will also designate a chief performance officer and a chief technology officer on Wednesday to help make government more efficient, they said.

Still, Democratic leaders in Congress acknowledged that the economic package would not be ready for Mr. Obama's signature immediately after his inauguration on Jan. 20, as they once hoped.

"It's going to be very difficult to get the package put together that early so that it can have sufficient time to be reviewed, and then sufficient time to be debated and passed," Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Mr. Hoyer said a more likely goal would be mid-February before Congress leaves on a Presidents' Day recess. "We certainly want to see this package passed through the House of Representatives no later than the end of this month, get it over to the Senate, and have it to the president before we break for the presidential break," Mr. Hoyer said.

Congressional Republicans continued to press for more public hearings and study, and some of their leaders threw out their own ideas for what should be in the plan. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, proposed Sunday that any money distributed to the states be provided as loans rather than outright grants.

"Nobody thinks we ought to be spending this money on things like mob museums and waterslides," Mr. McConnell said on "This Week" on ABC. "And if the money were lent rather than just granted, states would I think spend it wisely, and the states that didn't need it at all wouldn't take any."

Mr. McConnell said Republicans were more likely to favor tax relief and tax credits as part of the economic measure and said Congress should consider reducing the 25 percent income tax rate to 15 percent.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House speaker, said Congress would also take on the issue of waste in federal agencies, though she was not ready to disclose details of her approach. "We will have reforms related to waste, fraud and abuse," she said in an interview.

To read the entire article, click here.

The summaries of news items appearing in the Pipeline are selected to provide subscribers with a full range of that day's important news about issues affecting our federal government workforce and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Partnership for Public Service.