It’s Tax Day – Plus the DorobekINSIDER’s 7 Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Redundant federal programs are leading to billions in waste. Even worse, the Government Accountability Office says in their new report that the government is slow to adopt reforms to fix the problem. Click here for the full recap.

But Up Front: It’s Tax Day

• House bill would fire tax-delinquent federal workers
• Pew Research: State Govermnents Viewed Favorably as Federal Rating Hits New Low
  

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Cybersecurity: New version of old fight: The debate about to begin in the House this week is merely a more modern take on an old political fight: a classic lobbying battle set against the backdrop of a post-Sept.11 struggle between privacy and security.

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. The Office of Management and Budget has updated budget caps under sequestration. GovExec reports, OMB sent Congress three mandatory reports updating budget caps under the sequestration law, throwing in a familiar plea to lawmakers to reach a new budget compromise that cancels future automatic spending cuts.

2. Meanwhile, senior defense officials have again lowered their estimate of how many days civilian employees will be furloughed. Federal News Radio says the latest guess is seven days. Earlier they said 22 days, then cut that to 14 days. The officials told the Associated Press, it’s possible no furloughs will be required because of sequestration. That’s because the 2013 spending bill enacted in March gives the Defense Department the flexibility it needs to avoid them. The Navy was the first of the armed services to say it would try to skip furloughs entirely. But the Pentagon wants any furloughs to fall equally across all defense components.

3. The President is trying to once again cap contractor pay. GovExec reports, deep inside Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget released last week is language to set in motion another effort to clamp down on the amounts taxpayers reimburse contractors for the compensation of their top executives as well as their workforce writ large. Currently, contracting firms are permitted to write off pay and benefits of up to $763,000 for each of their top five executives.

4. 12,000 DoD civilian jobs will be cut in the next five years if the President’s 2014 budget goes into effect. Federal Times reports, the cuts would kick off an expected five-year cycle of significant staffing cuts. By the end of 2018, Defense Comptroller Robert Hale said last week, Defense will shed between 40,000 and 50,000 positions, about 5 to 6 percent of its total staffing levels. Defense has about 777,200 civilian employees this year.
5. It might be awhile before the Labor Department has a new secretary. Federal News Radio reports, no senator has put a hold on the nomination of Deputy Attorney General Thomas Perez. But he’s sparked a bitter fight on Capitol Hill in both the Senate and House. Republicans released a tough report Sunday criticizing a deal Perez made with Saint Paul, Minn. The city dropped a Supreme Court housing case, and the Justice agreed not to back two whistle-blowers.
6. One of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s longest-operating spacecraft, NOAA-17, has been retired after more than a decade of service. FCW reports NOAA-17 more than tripled its three-year life expectancy and continuing to provide vital data that feeds weather prediction models back on Earth. Launched in 2002 for about $200 million, the polar-orbiting satellite made 55,000 orbits around the globe, logging 1.5 billion miles of travel, all the while collecting massive amounts of valuable temperature, moisture and image data.
7. And on GovLoop. You can now register for the April edition of DorobekINSIDER Live. We’ll be talking citizen engagement. Register for the free event here.

The DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder

• Atlantic Media announced today that Brian Mockenhaupt is this year’s recipient of the Michael Kelly Award for his story, “The Living and the Dead,” published by Byliner.com. The $25,000 award is given annually to a journalist whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly’s own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth. Kelly, who was the editor of two Atlantic Media publications, The Atlantic and National Journal, was killed 10 years ago while covering the war in Iraq. In “The Living and the Dead,” Mockenhaupt tells the story of a Marine platoon in Afghanistan that suffered heavy casualties and the toll it took on those who survived.