This past week, Congress held another hearing on budget reform. Two former budget committee chairmen, Leon Panetta and David Obey, both testified. They lamented the current state of congressional budgeting and identified aspects of the 1974 Budget Act that discourage fiscally responsible and timely annual budgeting. Readers might be tempted to shrug this off as a non-event. “Elected officials […]
Highly automated vehicles (HAVs) have gone from fantasy to reality in the past decade. It is remarkable to witness the various prototypes motoring about courses and taking test drives on America’s roads. Already, related technology helps people parallel park their cars — some don’t even require the driver be in the car. Among other benefits, […]
President Donald Trump’s principal policy accomplishments thus far have been in the area of regulatory reform. The adoption of regulatory budgeting, use of the Congressional Review Act to repeal Obama-era regulations and a considerable slowdown in new rulemaking over the first 150 days are all positive steps. But, of course, there is more work to […]
Over the past year, leading members of Congress have delivered some stirring mea culpas about the demise of the First Branch of Government. Speaker Ryan’s “A Better Way” agenda declares: “The people granted Congress the power to write laws, raise revenues, and spend and borrow money on behalf of the United States. There is no […]
The Survey on the Future of Government Service, released last week by Vanderbilt University’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, reveals significant problems with the federal workforce. According to the data, collected from 3,551 federal executives, the civil service is struggling to recruit and retain America’s best and brightest — and agencies are plagued […]
The U.S. Postal Service’s latest financial results have been released. They are not good. The agency booked a loss of $2.1 billion in the first half of the fiscal year, which it ends with $15 billion in debt. Since 2011, the USPS has defaulted on $27 billion in payments to its Retiree Health Benefits Fund, […]
