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TOPICS
Official touts Bush's efforts to improve e-government
In taking stock of the administration's progress in digitizing government services during President Bush's time in office, the White House's deputy e-government chief noted on Thursday that government-wide Web sites have helped eradicate some of the bureaucratic maze.
At a gathering of information technology leaders from the public and private sectors, Timothy Young, deputy administrator of e-government and information technology for the Office of Management and Budget, rattled off names of government-wide Web sites such as GovBenefits.gov, Grants.gov and USAJobs.gov that did not exist prior to 2002.
Before USAJobs.gov, federal government job seekers had to visit a plethora of sites for each agency to find openings. "Now you can apply for all those jobs at one site," Young said.
Under OMB E-Government Administrator Karen Evans, Young has helped lead the planning and rollout of the administration's electronic government initiatives for more than four years.
"Imagine what would happen if we took all these services away," he said. "Think of what the labor unions would do if we did away with USAJobs.gov."
Young also pointed to the success of the recent on-budget and ahead-of-schedule launch of USAspending.gov, a single database, mandated under a law authored by Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that allows citizens to search government contracts and grants.
"Technology and government doesn't sit on the left or the right side of the aisle," Young said. "I look at the vision of e-government beyond 2008 [when Bush's term expires] and I see great things."
Yet, during a question and answer session, Young acknowledged that not everyone is welcoming this electronic consolidation of services.
An audience member asked him about a provision in the federal government's massive fiscal 2008 spending bill that places limitations on the consolidation of agency human resources systems.
Some view those restrictions as Congress saying "'this is bad government. I'm not so much convinced of that,'" Young said, adding that change is difficult.
For the remainder of Bush's term, "My sole goal is to focus on execution. No more new plans," he said. And he wants to "institutionalize" the e-government office within OMB so that the next administration will understand its importance.
COMMENTS
- Your article states: "Young also pointed to the success of the recent on-budget and ahead-of-schedule launch of USAspending.gov, a single database, mandated under a law authored by Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that allows citizens to search government contracts and grants." I would like to point Readers to an interesting discussion and sidebar about this data and database which can be found in the Federal Register [Vol 72/172 06 Sept 07 -Pg 51306]in the discussion of the proposed FAR subcontract pilot rule. Basically, the discussion explains that classified government contracts and grants are exempt from this data collection database and critical subcontracting data collection is of questionable value because it can't be verified, validated and isn't reported anywhere beyond the first tier. This lack of REAL WORLD government business data and collection is a major reason for corruption in Iraq War contracting and the contracting looting game is so successful for some. zz ziled Posted January 18, 2008 2:55 PM
- The quote below is from today's article on the Fed Gov't helping IBM workers apply for gov't jobs. "The Partnership's report found that the government has some significant hurdles to overcome. The report cited a March 2007 Pew Research Center poll that indicated while only 42 percent of people under 30 viewed government as inefficient, 70 percent of people in the FedExperience target age range of 50 to 64 saw government that way. The report also found that 57 percent of older Americans thought or had an experience that led them to believe that the federal job application process was more difficult than for private sector or nonprofit employers." Many people are turned away from even thinking about Federal service because of the way the application process is handled through USAJobs. That website needs simplification. Timothy Young and Karen Evans should not break their arms patting themselves on the back for that website. The application precess is unnecessarily complicated as are the vacancy announcements. Standardize the vacancy announcements, use one application process engine instead of each agency having their own, repond to applicants within 30 days one way or the other, and enforce this policy - just don't tell people how good you are. Dennis C. Jones Posted January 18, 2008 11:31 AM
