A Deficit Hawk’s Sequestration Lament

• By Charles S. Clark
• March 1, 2013
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Former Comptroller General David Walker -- whose travels around the country sounding alarms about public debt are well documented -- greeted the first day of sequestration not with shock but with disappointment.

“The fact that this is happening is due to a failure by the president, the Senate and the House to reach a more reasoned and reasonable approach to reducing our deficit and mounting debt,” he told Government Executive on Friday. “It is mindless because not all spending is equal, and not all tax preferences are equal. We’re at a point where something has to be done.” 

Walker, who now runs an advocacy group called the Comeback America Initiative, warned that the sequester will “continue unless and until there is a larger effort that cuts mandatory spending, reduces defense and other discretionary cuts; and achieves comprehensive tax reform that will generate more revenues.”

Republicans who are resisting tax hikes, he believes, “would be willing to agree with tax reform if it were coupled with much larger spending reductions, including mandatory reductions hard-coded into law.” That means tackling “ who’s eligible for what, with what subsidy,” he said. “The frustration I have is that we’re going from short-term crisis to ...

Obama Wants it Both Ways on Sequester

• By Tom Shoop
• February 26, 2013
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During his stop-the-sequester roadshow stop in Newport News, Va., today, President Obama cut to the heart of the issue. What doesn't make sense about sequestration, he argued, is what he has previously characterized as its "meat-cleaver" approach to budget cuts:

Now, the reason that we're even thinking about the sequester is because people are rightly concerned about the deficit and the debt.  But there is a sensible way of doing things and there is a dumb way of doing things.  I mean, think about your own family.  Let's say that suddenly you've got a little less money coming in. Are you going to say, well, we'll cut out college tuition for the kid, we'll stop feeding the little guy over here, we won't pay our car note even though that means we can't get to work -- that’s not what you do, right? 

So it might seem the solution would be in providing flexibility for the administration and federal agencies to apportion the cuts in a more rational way. That's exactly the idea some Republican leaders are kicking around this week.

But this approach doesn't suit the president either:

Now ...

A Poster Child for Government Waste

• By Charles S. Clark
• February 26, 2013
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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Sunday found itself abruptly accused on national television of overspending. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., a psychologist who appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation to discuss the role of mental health in gun violence, said:

The National Institute of Mental Health budget is very small. And my role as chairman of the oversight and investigation subcommittee we're going to look at this. And we're also looking at tremendous waste. For example, SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency -- I've got to show you this, they funded painting this picture for $22,000. Our tax dollars going to that.  Now I have no idea how this is going to help anybody get any better. SAMHSA is filled with all sorts of waste like this, where they are funding programs to tell people how to get off their medication. We need to be finding ways to get people help and not going down wrong things and making sure federal dollars are spent wisely to help families and help kids in these instances.

Brad Stone, a SAMSHA spokesman, told Government Executive that the poster was commissioned around 2009 from “renowned Native ...

Sequestration Questions and Answers

• By Tom Shoop
• February 25, 2013
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I was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, doing my best to explain the impact of the impending sequestration on federal agency operations -- including answering some tough questions from a group of students at Mount Vernon High School in northern Virginia. 

In the course of the appearance, I hope I shed some light on some of the basic issues surrounding the sequester and potential furloughs of federal employees.

Here's the video:

Agencies Are Supposed to Avoid Furloughs

• By Tom Shoop
• February 25, 2013
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With sequestration of agency budgets just days away, much of the talk lately has been about furloughs. The Pentagon has warned that more than 700,000 civilian employees could be subject to furloughs lasting up to 22 days. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has talked of furloughs of up to 14 days. Many other agencies have issued similar warnings. 

All of this provides a sense of inevitability to widespread furloughs of federal employees if Congress and the administration can't work out a deal to avoid a sequester. But under the law, agencies are supposed to be doing everything they can to avoid furloughs. In a report issued late last year during negotiations over a deal to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, OMB Watch noted that the Obama administration has "significant flexibility to avoid furloughs and [reductions in force]." 

The continuing resolution that funds government through March 27 contains the following language, the report noted:

Amounts made available under section 101 for civilian personnel compensation and benefits in each department and agency may be apportioned up to the rate for operations necessary to avoid furloughs within such department or agency, consistent with the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal year ...