Source: James Fallows, The Atlantic, January/February 2010
Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily--this country has been built on cycles of crisis and renewal, and the forces that have made it great remain strong. But the government is broken. Securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke.
Source: American Prospect, Special Report, Vol. 20 no. 8, October 2009
Today, the country's primary labor market - regular jobs with reliable wages, benefits, and terms of employment - is being drained by a rise in temporary and contract work with no security. By using its power as a contractor and by enforcing laws already on the books, government can turn millions of bad jobs into good ones.
Articles include:
• Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers - Annette Bernhardt, Ruth Milkman and Nik Theodore
Rebuilding our economy on the back of illegal working conditions is morally untenable -- and it is bad economics.
• Dark and Bitter - Nancy Cleeland
Food workers increasingly exist in a legal limbo with no protections for wages, benefits, job security, or life and limb. Why are employers like Hershey off the hook?
• Decent Work - Robert Kuttner
How government can get back on the side of promoting good jobs.
• Forgotten Corners of the Economy - Stephen Franklin
As unemployment rises, the illegal treatment of day laborers only worsens. Where's the government?
• Good Jobs, Healthy Cities - Peter Dreier
Some city governments are using their economic muscle to promote good jobs.
• Government Paves the Way - Paul Sonn and Annette Bernhardt
A decent work agenda for the Obama administration.
• Stuck on the Low Road - David Bensman
Deregulation turned truck driving from a good job into a bad one. Now, thanks to local organizing and government action, there's a better road.
• The Good War and the Workers - Steve Fraser
World War II defense contracts raised labor standards. Government could use the same leverage in peacetime.
• Which Side Is Government On? - David Moberg
Millions of contract workers whose salaries are ultimately paid by government live in poverty. Uncle Sam should demand high standards, not pay as little as possible.
Source: Local Spending, 2009
Billions are spent on government contracts. Track how much Federal money is spent near you and who it is going to.
Source: USASpendingwatch.net, 2009
USASpendingwatch.net is a (politics 2.0) website aiming to combine the federal expenses with their political context. This shall be the basis for better information navigation and investigation. Besides presenting new information and making analyses and interpretations using the data of USASpending.gov and other information sources ( govtrack.us ...) this website aims to provide a starting point for the community and citizens concerned about federal expenses and open government. Thus features like rating, sharing etc. are or will be implemented.
See also:
- Spendtrend.us
Source: Govpulse.us, 2009
To the average US citizen it can often seem that their government works in leaps and bounds, with new legislation or debates on legislation leaping to the fore. Yet every day the thousands of employees of the U.S Government go to work for the people of the country. Each day agencies release hundreds of proposed rules and regulations, meeting notices, final rules, and changes to existing rules in the form of the Federal Register. However in their current format they are difficult to find and to process in meaningful ways.
govpulse was built to address this problem and open the doors of government to the people they work for. By making such documents as the Federal Register searchable, more accessible and easier to digest, govepulse seeks to encourage every citizen to become more involved in the workings of their government and make their voice heard on the things that matter to them, from the smallest to the largest issues.
Federal civilian employment by major geographic area, state, and selected agency, executive branch and selected other agencies, non-postal, full-time, permanent employees and all annuitants.
Source: Martha Derthick, Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, August 2009
Wrapping up a study on the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on America's governments, political scientist Martha Derthick finds that "traditional federalism" won out over the Bush administration's attempt to centralize emergency management.
From the summary:
An inherently governmental function is one that, as a matter of law and policy, must be performed by federal government employees and cannot be contracted out because it is intimately related to the public interest. Concerned that the existence of multiple and/or inconsistent definitions of inherently governmental functions might be partly responsible for the alleged contracting out of inherently governmental functions by the Department of Defense (DOD) and other agencies, the 110th Congress enacted legislation (P.L. 110-417) requiring the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop a single consistent definition of inherently governmental functions. This definition is to ensure that the head of each ... agency is able to identify each position within that department or agency that exercises an inherently governmental function. By statute, OMB is to report on its definition by October 14, 2009. The current debate over which functions are inherently governmental is part of a larger debate about the proper role of the federal government vis--vis the private sector. This debate is as old as the Constitution, which prohibits privatization of certain functions (e.g., Congresss legislative function), a prohibition courts enforce under various judicial tests (e.g., nondelegation, functions affected with the public interest, etc.).
Source: James Chan, International Journal On Government Financial Management, Volume IX, Number 1, 2009
Business accounting has always been considered by some people to be the model for government accounting. In 1802, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the American Declaration of Independence, wished to "see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant's book,..." In the 1970s, Arthur Andersen & Co., an innovative accounting firm, tried to realize Jefferson's dream by challenging the U.S. Government itself to render its accounts according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), since it required business firms to follow GAAP, apparently believing that business GAAP was applicable to the U.S. Government. In the 1980s, the late Professor Robert Anthony of Harvard University was similarly convinced that American state and local governments should use business accounting principles, so that it would not be necessary to have a separate Governmental Accounting Standards Board. (It fell on the author as a young academic in 1980 to inform the Financial Accounting Standards Board how government differed from business.) In the 1990s, opinion leaders from several countries adhering to the "business accounting for government" approach successfully elevated this viewpoint to the international level. International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) patterned after international (business) accounting standards were developed, with exceptions only when government differed from business. The purpose of this brief essay is to answer three questions: What is so appealing about business accounting that it is urged upon government? How is government viewed differently by public budgeting specialists? When these two groups hold conflicting views on government financial presentation, how should those conflicts be resolved?
Source: Luke Fretwell, GovFresh, 2009
GovFresh is a live feed of official news from U.S. Government Twitter, YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Flickr accounts and more, all in one place.
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