Gov performance

[Commentary] In order for us to expand prosperity and extend economic opportunity to more Americans, we must remain on the cutting edge. This means that government at all levels must focus on removing barriers to innovation and ensuring that technological advances aren’t strangled by bureaucratic red tape.

For starters, we’re taking aggressive action to speed the roll-out of next-generation wireless networks. But to get to the 5G future that will make the Internet of Things fully possible, we’ll need much more infrastructure than what today’s networks demand. If America is to lead the world in 5G, we need to modernize our regulations so that infrastructure can be deployed promptly and at scale. Another Federal Communications Commission priority has been making the agency more agile and responsive.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the commission can do more with less—102 fewer full-time employees, for example—and his budget reflected that philosophy while still being able to serve the FCC's core mission of protecting the public interest and closing the digital divide. Chairman Pai, joined by Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly, testified on the FCC's budget before the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

The FCC has asked for about $322 million, 5.2% less than the previous year, even though the FCC's budget has been flat since 2009. Chairman Pai conceded it was a challenge to do more with less but that the FCC had rolled up its sleeves. And while he said past chairmen had pointed out that the FCC is fully funded by fees charged to licensees, he also remembered—and more than one legislator reminded him—that someone was paying that fee, including businesses big and small and the consumers to whom those fees were passed along. Chairman Pai said that even with fewer people, the FCC had more than doubled the number of items it was dealing with at its public meetings—saying the average was not 5.83 items vs. 2.58 under his predecessor. He cited a number of cost savings as well, from closing an off-site warehouse to cutting down on the number of printers and copying machines.

President Donald Trump called for “sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology” during the first meeting of the American Technology Council.

Eighteen of America’s leading technology executives – including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google parent Alphabet – convened at the White House for the summit. “Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution,” said President Trump. “America should be the global leader in government technology just as we are in every other aspect, and we are going to start our big edge again in technology – such an important industry.” The tech leaders spent four hours meeting officials including Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross before meeting with the president. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, was also present.

They discussed modernizing the government’s technological infrastructure, cutting fraud and government costs and improving services for taxpayers. The White House believes these measures could save up to $1 trillion over 10 years.

President Donald Trump fired off tweets June 16 attacking the special counsel's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and apparently, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” the president said on Twitter. The somewhat vague tweet seems to refer to Rosenstein, who wrote a memo outlining an argument against then-FBI director James B. Comey. The White House initially claimed that Rosenstein's memo contributed to Trump's decision to fire Comey. But later, President Trump said in an interview that he would have fired Comey “regardless” of Rosenstein's recommendation.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the special investigation is currently being led by another former FBI director. Robert Mueller reports to Rosenstein, but is authorized to pursue the investigation independently. And there is no evidence that Mueller recommended to President Trump that he fire Comey. President Trump also seemed to confirm reports in The Washington Post and other publications that Mueller's investigation has expanded to include allegations that he attempted to obstruct the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the election and his campaign associates' possible collusion with Russians.

Attorneys general for the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland say they will sue President Donald Trump on June 12, alleging that he has violated anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution by accepting millions in payments and benefits from foreign governments since moving into the White House.

The lawsuit, the first of its kind brought by government entities, centers on the fact that Trump chose to retain ownership of his company when he became president. President Trump said in January that he was shifting his business assets into a trust managed by his sons to eliminate potential conflicts of interests. But DC Attorney General Karl Racine (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) say President Trump has broken many promises to keep separate his public duties and private business interests. For one, his son Eric Trump has said the President would continue to receive regular updates about his company’s financial health. The lawsuit alleges “unprecedented constitutional violations” by President Trump. The suit says Trump’s continued ownership of a global business empire has rendered the President “deeply enmeshed with a legion of foreign and domestic government actors” and has undermined the integrity of the US political system.

In 2015, the Library of Congress received critical audits from the Government Accountability Office and its inspector general, both detailing serious years-long IT governance, security and strategy issues. The troublesome findings, in particular, those from GAO, drove the library to hire a permanent chief information officer—something it hadn’t had since 2012—and laid out 30 recommendations to right the legislative branch’s IT ship. In the two years since, the Library of Congress has made significant strides improving its IT operations, according to CIO Bernard Barton, though the library still has large challenges ahead.

[Commentary] As changing technologies and preferences make government-funded broadcasting increasingly preposterous, such broadcasting actually becomes useful by illustrating two dismal facts. One is the immortality of entitlements that especially benefit those among society’s articulate upper reaches who feel entitled. The other fact is how impervious government programs are to evidence incompatible with their premises.

The White House is telling federal agencies to blow off Democratic lawmakers' oversight requests, as Republicans fear the information could be weaponized against President Donald Trump. At meetings with top officials for various government departments this spring, Uttam Dhillon, a White House lawyer, told agencies not to cooperate with such requests from Democrats, according to Republican sources inside and outside the administration. It appears to be a formalization of a practice that had already taken hold, as Democrats have complained that their oversight letters requesting information from agencies have gone unanswered since January, and the Trump administration has not yet explained the rationale.

The declaration amounts to a new level of partisanship in Washington, where the president and his administration already feels besieged by media reports and attacks from Democrats. The idea, Republicans said, is to choke off the Democratic congressional minorities from gaining new information that could be used to attack the president.