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| NEWS: Dec. 7, 2016 Spending/Public Finance | The Nation Congress Scrambles to Avert Shutdown Congressional negotiators are pressing to wrap up a stopgap funding measure to keep federal agencies open beyond Friday evening and avoid a government shutdown. Republican leaders introduced a bill to keep status-quo spending, with a slight boost for defense and bipartisan health programs, in place through April 28. >> Government Executive, The Hill Pentagon Denies Suppressing Cost-Savings Study A Pentagon spokesman denied a Washington Post report that a January 2015 internal study finding that the Defense Department could eliminate $125 billion in administrative costs over five years had been suppressed, saying that it has remained online. >> New York Times Judge OK's San Bernardino's Bankruptcy Exit Plan The federal judge overseeing San Bernardino, Calif.'s bankruptcy says she will approve the city's plan to restructure its finances, according to a city spokeswoman. The plan would slash bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs while protecting pensions. >> Reuters
House Rejects Impeaching IRS Chief The House voted overwhelmingly to effectively put an end to an effort by hard-line conservatives to impeach Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John A. Koskinen over the agency's destruction of computer backups containing thousands of emails sought by a House committee investigating political targeting at the IRS. No evidence emerged to implicate Koskinen in a cover-up, but conservatives said he should be held accountable. >> Washington Post Voters Oust East Cleveland Mayor, Council President East Cleveland, Ohio, Mayor Gary Norton Jr. and City Council President Thomas Wheeler were both narrowly recalled from their positions leading the fiscally troubled city in a special election. >> Cleveland Plain Dealer The Presidency | The Nation Trump on New Air Force One: 'Cancel Order!' President-elect Donald J. Trump took a shot at one of the nation's largest manufacturers, Boeing, sharply criticizing a pending order for a new Air Force One and suggesting that the company was "doing a little bit of a number" with the cost of the next generation of presidential aircraft. "Cancel order!" Trump tweeted. >> New York Times Trump Picks Iowa Governor as Ambassador to China Trump offered the post of U.S. ambassador to China to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, the longest-serving governor in U.S. history and a friend of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Branstad accepted. >> Bloomberg News Trump Adviser's Son Removed from Transition Team The son of Trump's top national security adviser was removed from the new administration's transition team after backing a bogus conspiracy theory that inspired a shooting incident in Washington. >> Washington Post
North Dakota Ranked as Nation's Best-Run State North Dakota ranks as the best-run state in the country for the fifth year in a row, followed by Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah, according to the latest annual 24/7 Wall St. review ranking the states on outcomes and conditions based on finances as well as social and economic indicators. For the second consecutive year, New Mexico ranks as the worst-run state. >> 24/7 Wall St. Pennsylvania's Oversight of Impact Fees Weak, Says Audit Weak oversight and unclear limits in Pennsylvania's impact-fee law have allowed some local governments to spend the money in ways that have little to do with addressing the natural gas drilling-related pressures the funds were meant to offset, a state audit says. >> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Audit Slams Oregon on Affordable-Housing Administration Oregon's failure to track data and plan strategically for affordable housing has put the state at risk of losing existing units in the midst of a housing crisis, an audit by the secretary of state's office says. >> The Oregonian
Longtime Cal State Leader Dies Charles B. Reed, who navigated the 23-campus California State University system through rapid growth amid deep budget cuts as its chancellor from 1998 to 2012, died at the age of 75. Before coming to Cal State, Reed served for more than a decade as chancellor of the State University System of Florida. >> Chronicle of Higher Education Wisconsin School Districts to Get $218 Million Settlement Five Wisconsin school districts that lost $200 million in a complex investment scheme nearly a decade ago will receive nearly $218 million in one of the largest settlements in the state's history. >> Milwaukee Journal Sentinel >> Follow GovManagement on Twitter >> Share this edition:
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QUOTABLE “This is so much fun!” Marshawna Williams, a Portland State University admissions counselor who this fall admitted dozens of students in numerous high-school visits after examining their transcripts and college entrance exam scores as part of an "instant admission" program that PSU and other regional schools are offering in hopes of luring more soon-to-be-graduating seniors to their campuses >> Portland Oregonian | More quotes DATAPOINT About $6,000 Amount that a fake United States embassy that was raided and shut down this summer after operating in Accra, Ghana, for the last decade, with its staff posing as consular officials beneath of photo of President Obama as an American flag flew outside, was charging unsuspecting Ghanians and other West Africans for fake passports, visas and other documents >> Quartz | More data
The Environment | Adam Frank NASA's Unique Role in Climate Research On April 1, 1960, the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration heaved a 270-pound box of electronics into Earth orbit. Tiros-1 was the first world's first weather satellite. This small piece of history says a lot about the call by a space-policy adviser to President-elect Donald Trump to de-fund NASA's earth science efforts, moving those functions to other agencies and letting it focus on deep-space research. NASA's critics have long wanted to shut the agency out of research related to climate change. The problem is, not only is earth science a long-running part of NASA's "prime mission," but the space agency is uniquely positioned to do it. Without NASA, climate research worldwide would be hobbled. >> New York Times PLUS: Glenn Harlan Reynolds on nurturing the success of capitalism in space. >> USA Today | More commentaries UPCOMING EVENTS American Society for Public Administration BookTalk webinar: "Peak Performance" Today, 1 p.m. ET Government Technology Webinar: "Electronic Signature Technology Comes of Age" Today, 2 p.m. ET Urban Institute Documentary screening and discussion: "'Raising Bertie': Inequality and Opportunity in Rural America" Today, 6-7:45 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. American Enterprise Institute and University of Baltimore School of Criminal Justice Conference: "Opportunity and Reentry: Creating Pathways for Returning Citizens in Maryland and Beyond" Dec. 8, Baltimore Pew Charitable Trusts Discussions and webcast: "Voting in America 2016: How Have Elections Evolved?" Dec. 8, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Brookings Institution Discussion: "The All-Volunteer Force at a Crossroads: The Military Family and Veteran Connection" Dec. 8, 10:30 a.m.-noon ET, Washington, D.C. Center for American Progress Report release and discussion with Delaware Gov. Jack Markell: "Ensuring Equality in 2017: a Look Ahead at the Landscape for LGBT Rights at the State and Local Level" Dec. 8, noon-1:30 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. >> Full events listings |
