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Government Executive Editor in Chief Tom Shoop, along with other editors and staff correspondents, look at the federal bureaucracy from the outside in.
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When Drinking on the Job Makes You Better

I've become a late-to-the-party devotee of Mad Men. One of the things that makes the show so engaging is its dedication to verisimilitude when it comes to historical accuracy, design and fashion -- oh, and also to the prodigious amount of in-office drinking that apparently went on in the 1960s. 

These days, of course, it's not fashionable to booze it up in the workplace. But does that mean that today's workers are better, and more productive? You'd think that would be the case, but apparently it's never been scientifically proven. And today in Slate, Matthew Iglesias highlights a study showing that getting moderately drunk can actually help people perform certain creative tasks. (Vindication for Don Draper!)

All of this made me wonder if it was ever the case that people who worked in government routinely opened meetings with a stiff drink. I have it on good authority that the folks who ran Government Executive back in the day did their fair share of boozing it up, both in the office and after they'd repair to local watering holes. But was that ever true among the people the magazine served? Or did people assume that when ...

Look Who Was on the IRS List

  • By Charles S. Clark
  • August 15, 2013
  • comments

Former Comptroller General David Walker has a professional as well as a personal interest in the outcome of the investigation of the Internal Revenue Service’s mishandling of nonprofit groups’ applications for tax-exempt status.

Among the many hats Walker has worn since departing the Government Accountability Office in 2008 is that of founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative, which “promotes fiscal responsibility and sustainability by engaging the public and assisting key policymakers on a nonpartisan basis in order to achieve solutions to America’s fiscal imbalances,” its mission statement says.

Walker did not fail to notice back in May when a Treasury Department inspector general’s report on IRS’ extra scrutiny of certain nonprofits included Comeback America on a list of nearly 300.

“The good news was we were deemed centrist,” he told Government Executive. “The bad news was the IRS considered mission and ideology, which is inappropriate. They’re supposed to determine whether groups engaged in political activity." Hence the report “confirmed they were doing things they shouldn’t do.”

Furloughed Feds: Don't Fall for this Scam

As if federal employees had not been targeted enough recently, now scam artists are looking to take advantage of the beleaguered government workforce.

The Federal Trade Commission has posted a warning on its website about a caller who is specifically going after furloughed federal employees. The scammer tells the individual who answers the phone about a “free” government grant specifically designed for that person.

The caller then asks for the individual’s bank account information or asks the fed to pay a fee, in order to get a nonexistent grant, FTC said. If you’ve already been targeted in this ploy, FTC is encouraging you to file a complaint.

So, if you’re at home on furlough and you get a call with an offer that sounds too good to be true, well, that’s probably because it is. 

Furloughed Fed Wins $1 Million Lottery

Melissa Weinmann has had a good week.

First, the Defense Department civilian in Pensacola, Fla., learned her furlough days were reduced from 11 to six. Not bad.

Days later, she won $1 million after hitting the Powerball lottery. Even better.

Weinmann had all five numbers correct on her ticket, according to the Pensacola News Journal, but not the Powerball number itself that would have entitled her to a share of the $448 million jackpot. After the numbers were announced, her boss gave her the day off to celebrate. The next day, Weinmann -- whose husband works for the U.S. Marine Corps -- was furloughed.

Despite her newfound fortunes, Weinmann will continue her service to the federal government.

“I loved to work,” she told the News Journal. “If I didn’t have my work I’d be lost.” 

Timing Is Key for a Coveted IRS Witness

  • By Charles S. Clark
  • August 9, 2013
  • comments

Since the Internal Revenue Service scandal broke last May, Republican lawmakers have coveted hearing testimony from William Wilkins, the agency’s chief counsel and an Obama political appointee.

Their appetites were further whetted after July interviews with mid-level IRS employees indicated that one reason for the now-notorious delays in an IRS unit’s processing of conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status was a hold-up from one of the 1,500 attorneys on the chief counsel’s staff.

In a column last week, conservative commentator Dick Morris invoked the Nixon-era Watergate crisis by asking whether Wilkins is the “G. Gordon Liddy of the IRS scandal.”

Acting IRS chief Danny Werfel, who just weeks into the job has been struggling to satisfy congressional overseers’ demands for internal documents, volunteered at an Aug. 2 House hearing that the IRS has offered Wilkins to testify. But so far the chairmen of the Ways and Means and the Oversight and Government Reform panels have declined. They have now gone home for the five-week August recess presumably to hear what constituents have to say about how much of a scandal the IRS has on its hands.

Asked why the panels haven't accepted the offer for ...