TSP's G Fund Helps Delay Debt Ceiling
CBP Could Escape Furloughs
Feds Flock to TSP's L Funds
EIG 2013 as Told by Your Tweets
Boldly Go Where No Fed's Gone Before
The Big Squeeze: Defense Under Sequester
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Bob Brewin
Editor at Large
Bob Brewin joined Government Executive in April 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience as a journalist focusing on defense issues and technology. Bob covers the world of defense and information technology for Nextgov, and is the author of the “What’s Brewin” blog.
A Bigger Staff Isn’t Helping VA Process Disability Claims Any Faster
March 20, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Veterans Affairs Department’s disability claims backlog continues to hover at nearly 900,000 even though the department has beefed up its staff, the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee charged at a hearing Wednesday. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said that in 1997 the “average VA field employee” processed 135 ...
House Lawmaker Wants VA Benefits Chief to Resign
March 20, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story was updated to include a comment from VA spokesman Josh Taylor. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, called on Allison Hickey, the Veterans Affairs Department’s undersecretary for benefits, to resign due to the growing backlog of disability claims. Miller called for Hickey’s ...
VA Goes on Offensive on Disability Claims Processing
March 19, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee will hold yet another hearing Wednesday on the Veterans Affairs Department’s troubled disability claims processing system, and Tuesday the VA launched what looks like a good news pre-emptive strike before the hearing on its VAntage point blog. In a blog post titled “Balancing the Record ...
From Mount Kilimanjaro to the Bataan Memorial Death March
March 18, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. – My usual hiking buddy for the Bataan Memorial Death March opted out this year to attend a black tie dinner in Washington (bad choice) and I knew I needed to find someone to hike with, as I did not want to do the demanding ...
VA Gives Tranquilizers to 30 Percent of PTSD Patients, Despite Warnings
March 18, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Veterans Affairs Department treats more than 30 percent of veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium, despite clinical practice guidelines issued in 2010 warning against their use, VA’s National Center for PTSD reported. The 2010 PTSD clinical practice guidelines, which also apply to ...
Army Plans New IT System to Manage Disability Review Process
March 14, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Army has set up a task force to develop an integrated information technology system to replace multiple systems currently used to manage the medical review and discharge process. In a report released March 8, the Army Task Force on Behavioral Health recommended adoption of the Defense and Veterans Affairs ...
The A-Bomb and the F-35 Debacle
March 14, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Want some perspective on the $397 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program? Check out its cost and timeline versus the cost and time it took to develop the atomic bomb in World War II. The total bill for development of the A-bomb came to $2 billion in 1940s dollars, which ...
NY and LA Vets: Take a Long Hike as Your Disability Claims Ripen
March 13, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Veterans Affairs Department reports it has a backlog of 898,861 disability claims, with 632,358, or 70.5 percent stuck in the system for over 125 days. Joseph Violante, national legislative director at Disabled American Veterans, told a hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee today that these figures don’t convey ...
DISA Will Finish Moving Army Email to the Cloud this Month
March 13, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story has been updated. The Defense Information Systems Agency will complete migration of 1.5 million unclassified Army email accounts to an enterprise system hosted at its data centers by the end of this month. DISA also has begun a pilot project to move Air National Guard and Air Force ...
The Anti-Domestic Drone Company
March 12, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, predicted last month that the Federal Aviation Administration’s plans to allow drones in domestic airspace mean that 30,000 of the unmanned aircraft will zip around American skies by 2030. The drones will be “looking, observing, filming and hovering over America,” Poe said. “We will not know ...
