Federal Drive

Monday Morning Federal Newscast – July 11

Federal employment is in decline, small business contracts being awarded to big companies, and the debt ceiling debate rages on.

Federal News Network Staff

July 11, 2011 8:05 am

4 min read

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

The House approved a 1.6 percent pay raise for military personnel. The raise was included in the $648 billion defense spending bill for fiscal 2012. Overall, the House version boosts Pentagon spending by $17 billion. Also in the bill was money for 32 copies of the F-35 fighter, 10 Navy ships and 40 other assorted aircraft. The Senate has yet to finalize its version of a Defense spending bill. Civilian federal employees face another year of frozen pay.
The Interior Department is trying to save future technology spending by $500 million. A new plan for calls for the department to focus on service delivery instead of hardware and software. In a White House blog, Secretary Ken Salazar says the effort is part of a drive to reduce spending throughout the department. He says Interior has already cut contractor spending by $250 million. IT is a big target, though. Interior’s 2011 IT budget is close to $1 billion. It’s up to CIO Bernard Mazer to carry out the new IT plan.
Still no deficit reduction agreement between the White House and Congressional leaders. A rare Sunday evening session, lasting 75 minutes, ended with President Obama and House Republicans seeking very different goals. The president’s latest plan would reduce debt by $4 trillion over ten years, partly through tax hikes. Republicans oppose tax hikes and are seeking a smaller deficit reduction goal. Obama will hold a news conference today. Both sides agreed to continue daily meetings.
Federal and state employment is on the decline across the board. New numbers are out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They show federal employment at all levels fell last month, with 39,000 jobs lost in local government and 14,000 fewer federal jobs. According to the report, those numbers continue to trend down and have been falling since the second half of 2008.
The federal government awarded more than $8 billion worth of small-business contracts to big companies. That’s the conclusion of a federal spending analysis by the American Small Business League. Federal Times reports, the League says the government awarded 61 out of the 100 top small business awards to companies like General Electric, Lockheed Martin and AT&T. Last week the Small Business Administration reported nearly 23 percent of federal contractor spending in 2010 went to small businesses. The League says the figure is more like 5 percent.
The federal government wants people to eat more seafood. In fact, seafood consumption by Americans is on the rise. Trouble is more than 80 percent of fish, clams, and oysters consumed by Americans came from foreign sources last year. And the nation ran a nearly $11 billion seafood trade deficit. Now the Commerce Department is trying to boost the amount of seafood coming out of domestic waters. It’s opened large offshore federal areas to commercial fish and shellfish farming. Until now, all domestic seafood farming took place in close-in state coastal waters.
The federal government never sleeps when it comes to protecting the nation’s currency. Just ask jewelry store worker Joan Langbord of Philadelphia. Her late father, who started the shop during the Depression, left 10 Double Eagle gold coins in a safe deposit box. In 2003, Langford took the twenty-dollar coins, dated 1933, to the U.S. Mint for authentication. The Wall Street Journal reports, they coins were real. And illegal, so the government confiscated them. Turns out, the coins were never legally circulated. They were recalled by President Franklin Roosevelt, who worried about people hording gold. Now the Lanbord family and the federal government are duking it out in court.

THIS AFTERNOON ON FEDERAL NEWS RADIO

Coming up today on In Depth with Francis Rose:
Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu steps into the anchor chair while Francis Rose enjoys vacation. On today’s show, one way to stay a step ahead of the cyber hackers is to recruit the best and the brightest. And that’s the idea behind the Cyber Challenge. Hear from Karen Evans, the woman behind the nationwide cyber talent search. And, with tight budgets agencies are being asked to do more with less. A new report says adding diversity can make your agency more competitive. Join Jared from 3 to 7 p.m. on 1500AM or listen on your computer.