Archive for October 9th, 2008
DorobekInsider: What the Wall Street mess means to you?
Let’s be honest — all most of us can think about these days is the economy. Even if we’re not churning about what this might mean for the government, we’re thinking about it in terms of what it means for our retirement. (Did your statement arrive in the mail? Yikes!)
PBS’s NewsHour tonight had Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, who is a regular blogger and generally worth reading. And his comments on the NewsHour last night are also worth reading (or listening to)…
Orszag was asked about retirement issues… and was to the point…
These choices apply to TSP accounts too, of course.
He also helped to put the deficit numbers in context…
And then he spoke about the impact on government spending… (ital is added by me)
PETER ORSZAG: Well, we were — even before this, we were on an unsustainable fiscal course. And, you know, one thing we need to remember is we’re lucky that we have the maneuvering room now to issue lots of additional Treasury securities and intervene aggressively to address this crisis.
JEFFREY BROWN: Wait a minute. Explain that. Lucky in what sense? That we just have the money available?
PETER ORSZAG: That people are still willing to lend to us. If in 20 or 30 years we continue on the same path, with rising health care costs and rising budget deficits, we would reach a point where we wouldn’t even have that ability.
And so if another crisis like this one hits, we would then not have the maneuvering room that we currently have to address it in a prompt way.
JEFFREY BROWN: But even in the next year, say, when you look at various things that are talked about — well, the health care system, for one. That’s one you’ve studied a lot. There are implications for any possible reforms or programs that anybody might want to implement.
PETER ORSZAG: I think it’s going to be very likely that, early next year and into much of next year, most of the economic policy discussion will be surrounding the financial markets, and so it’s going to be hard to get other topics on the agenda, not just for fiscal reasons, but also just because we’re all human beings and there’s a limited amount of time and attention that can be given to different topics.
JEFFREY BROWN: We’ve heard the candidates asked about this, and my colleagues Jim and Gwen have both asked them in the debates they moderated about the implications. You’re saying there’s no doubt that, whoever takes office, will have to deal with this?
PETER ORSZAG: We had to deal with it. We have to deal with our long-term fiscal problems. We had to deal with them before this financial crisis occurred. All the more so, as we emerge from the crisis, we better get our hands around the fiscal course that we’re on.
Again, primarily because, if we don’t, we’re going to wind up with a crisis that’s even worse than today’s and we won’t have the ability to address it in any sensible way.
And while nobody can predict the future, I tend to agree with him — it sure seems that the economic issues are going to suck up the oxygen leaving little money for new programs.
All of that being said, Harvard Prof. Steve Kelman, who is also a FCW columnist and blogger, has a wonderful post suggestig that the economic upheval might spur young people to look at government work.
Graduating students are always the canary in the coal mine for the economy: When employers cut back, they cut back first on new hires, before letting existing employees go. This year is shaping up as an extremely dramatic example of this phenomenon, probably at elite universities in particular, where there was so much recruitment into the sectors hardest hit by the current economic situation.
The current issue of the student newspaper at the Kennedy School reports that Harvard Business School has hired psychological counselors to help students suffering from anxiety attacks. Given the extent to which students sign on for MBA programs in the hopes this is a ticket to financial wealth, these students are probably particularly affected by this reversal of fortunes.
DorobekInsider.com: Kempf GSA’s new FAS deputy?
I’m hearing that Steven J. Kempf, who has been heading up the acting assistant commissioner for acquisition management, was named the acting FAS deputy late last week.
Kempf had been in the acquisition management post since February. According to the release about that position in February:
Kempf was a 2008 winner of Federal Computer Week’s prestigious Fed 100 award for his work on HSPD-12. That being said, some see Kempf as tied to GSA’s troubled and yet-to-be-awarded Alliant contract.
It is unclear if Kempf will keep his acquisition management post. (Most of the senior GSA posts are “acting.” Come January, Jim Williams, GSA’s acting administrator, can go back to his former post as FAS commissioner. That means that the current acting FAS commissioner, Tyree Varnado, would become Williams’ deputy and, one assumes that Kempf would return to his acquisition management post… but I can’t follow that many dominoes.)
DorobekInsider: A debt sign of the times
One of those sign of the times stories — pun only partially intentended…
The Associated Press reports this morning, which I found in the WJS.com’s Morning Briefing e-mail newsletter, that the debt clock has run out of numbers.
They also have an online version of the debt clock here.
For those keeping track at home: $10,229,264,925.91
They estimate the U.S. population of 304,876,587, which means we each owe $33,553.79.
DorobekInsider: The government’s newest blog… the U.S. Fire Administration
The latest agency to join the blogosphere: The Homeland Security Department’s U.S. Fire Administration. You can find the blog at blog.usfa.dhs.gov. (And, to their credit, they have a link right from the top of the home page.)
According to the USFA’s release, “This blog will serve as a tool for the Fire Service to share comments, ideas, and success stories about fire prevention, preparedness, and response in America. In turn, USFA will post videos, outreach materials, and other helpful tools while charting feedback.”
The blog’s first post is headlined Fire Department Preparedness and it was written by Ken Kuntz.
USA.gov has a collection of many of the government blogs.
And you can read the Fire Service’s full release after the break.
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