Latest Commentary

Free THOMAS!

June 5, 2012 | By
Especially for a voluble group of self-proclaimed believers that the private sector can do better than government, the House Appropriations Committee looks mightily like it's trying to protect a...

Magical thinking at OMB

May 29, 2012 | By
Changing any large organization is difficult work. But not only is the federal government big, it's got Congress as a cranky 535 person board of directors, a workplace culture that favors slow...

Joe Jordan may not be familiar enough with acquisition to be OFPP head

May 15, 2012 | By
Is Joseph Jordan as head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy really the best the White House could do? Admittedly, this is an administration with a weakness for putting flashy young guys...

Gen Y recruitment worries miss reality

May 8, 2012 | By
What does Generation Y really want? As a supposed member of the generation that is said to have preceded it, Generation X, allow me to posit this: They probably want to stop being condescended to...

Resist cost cutting that makes jury pools small

May 1, 2012 | By
Findings that the racial composition of a jury pool can have a "substantial impact" on the rate of conviction is troubling. Authors of an academic paper that looked at two sets of data...

Save federal basic research

April 24, 2012 | By
There's a trend among federal and military research and development officials to praise applied research and development at the expense of basic research. Air Force science and technology...

Kyl-Lott continues to throw roadblocks to open government

April 17, 2012 | By
For another piece of evidence that the Kyl-Lott amendment continues even a decade later to throw up roadblocks to open government, look no further than an April 12 post on the National Security...

The Lurita Doan farce

April 10, 2012 | By
The first time is tragedy, the second time is farce, goes the cliché about history. But, in the matter of resigning heads of the General Services Administration, that’s backwards:...

Martha Johnson's resignation from GSA

April 3, 2012 | By
The inspector general report (.pdf) that led former General Services Administrator Martha Johnson to resign on April 2 contains shocking examples of government waste. The federal officials who...

Low DHS morale holds lesson for reorganization proponents

March 27, 2012 | By
So, morale is low at the Homeland Security Department. Such is often the fate of new departments and big agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency, an old Washington hand once assured me, had a
Press Releases
Sponsored Links