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  • Laying the Path to Fiscal Responsibility

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 27, 2010 at 10:30 AM EDT

    The President formed the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform because he believes that the path to fiscal stability begins with bi-partisan cooperation. Today, the Commission met with the President and held its first meeting, where I joined them to discuss the Nation’s unsustainable fiscal trajectory and the importance of the task before them.

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  • Doing Business with Small Business

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 26, 2010 at 3:05 PM EDT

    Today, the President signed a memorandum outlining steps that will expand opportunities for small businesses to conduct business with the federal government. Small businesses are an important engine of job growth throughout the economy. That is why to boost economic growth and foster job creation, the Administration has undertaken already a number of initiatives – including through the Recovery Act – to boost small business lending and hiring.

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  • Getting the Best Ideas from Outside Washington

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 19, 2010 at 1:13 PM EDT

    As the President has said time and again, the best ideas often come from outside Washington. A vivid example involves new technology and management techniques to make large organizations run more effectively and efficiently.

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  • Numbers Count

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 12, 2010 at 5:22 PM EDT

    My blog post this morning prompted some questions from people who are comparing the Administration’s 2010 earmarks count with data released last month by the group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). TCS does good work and is a respected outside voice. In this earmarks’ count, however, its analysis is a bit off.

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  • Changing the Trend on Earmarks

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 12, 2010 at 6:00 AM EDT

    For too many years, the practice of congressional earmarking continued virtually unabated. During the 10-year period that ended in 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service, the number of earmarks skyrocketed, increasing by more than 400 percent and reaching a level of more than 16,000. This increase was particularly troubling because all too often, earmarks are an easy vehicle for special interest deal-making – inserted into congressional spending bills without filter for merit, need, priority, or any scrutiny by the public, the media, or other members of Congress.

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  • OMB and Open Government

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 7, 2010 at 1:30 PM EDT

    When the President came into office, he underscored his commitment to changing the old ways of Washington by directing federal agencies to open government to the American people. In our first year in office, we have taken transformative steps that will permanently break down the barriers between the government and the citizens it serves.

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  • Following Doctor’s Orders

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on April 1, 2010 at 12:52 PM EDT

    Since the President signed the health insurance reform bill into law last week and the reconciliation package into law this week, some critics have been carping that the bill does not do enough to constrain health care costs — or as OMBlog readers know it, "bend the curve."

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  • SAVEings

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 29, 2010 at 3:00 PM EDT

    Today, DHS announced that it is changing the default setting for its payroll statements from paper to electronic. This means employees will receive their regular payroll data electronically instead of getting stacks of paper earnings statements by mail. By making e-statements the default option, while giving employees the option to opt out in favor of the paper statement, we hope to increase the percentage of federal employees who use this approach while saving the taxpayers’ money.

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  • For the Reading List

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 25, 2010 at 1:24 PM EDT

    On Sunday, I wrote a post rebutting the last-minute charges that health insurance reform — despite CBO’s score — was fiscally irresponsible and loaded with budgeting and accounting gimmicks. Today, two former CBO officials now at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released their own, more detailed analysis. The title of their paper says it all: "Health Reform Will Reduce the Deficit." It’s worth a read.

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  • Tech Tool to Save Taxpayers’ Money

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 24, 2010 at 10:33 AM EDT

    As regular readers of this blog know, I am an avid believer in the power of data. Evidence-based decisions drive a lot of what we do at OMB, from budget decisions to regulatory review.

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  • Fiscal Realities

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 21, 2010 at 3:05 PM EDT

    We are mere feet from the finish line to passing into law historic, fiscally responsible health insurance reform that will give more choice and security to those with health insurance, provide access to coverage to those without, improve the quality of health care for us all, and provide the most deficit reduction of any bill in over a decade.

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  • Responsible and Paid For

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 18, 2010 at 4:01 PM EDT

    Today’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate of health insurance reform legislation reaffirms what we have said for the past year: that fiscally responsible health insurance reform is not only possible, but also is an important step toward long-term fiscal sustainability.

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  • Taking On Earmarks

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 11, 2010 at 6:00 PM EDT

    Yesterday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey announced a major step forward in earmark reform, banning earmarks that go to for-profit companies. He also announced that the House would post every earmark request on a single website — right in line with what the President called for in his State of the Union address. These actions will help to reduce abuses and bring more transparency to earmarks.

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  • Show-Me Savings

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 10, 2010 at 6:01 PM EDT

    Before he became President, Harry Truman made a name for himself by heading a commission that looked into waste in contracting during World War II. So it is only fitting that in Truman’s home state of Missouri today, the President announced a new initiative to go after the $100 billion in improper payments made by the federal government each year.

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  • Salary Statistics

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 10, 2010 at 3:36 PM EDT

    At a Government Executive breakfast meeting yesterday, I was asked about salaries for federal employees – an issue that has received some attention lately in the popular press.

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  • No Gimmick

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on March 4, 2010 at 3:28 PM EDT

    The President has insisted since day one that health insurance reform should not add a dime to the deficit. In keeping with this commitment, the President has put forward a health plan that would reduce deficits by roughly $100 billion over the next ten years and by roughly $1 trillion in the decade after that.

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  • Education: The Wind at America’s Back

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on February 26, 2010 at 3:25 PM EDT

    Today, I spoke to students at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, where I discussed the Administration’s efforts to promote short-term economic recovery, put the nation on a sustainable fiscal trajectory, and make investments to bolster long-term economic growth. I have written here on many occasions about the first two topics covered in today’s talk, so I’ll use this post to delve a bit more into the final topic of making new investments to promote growth —and, in particular, by expanding access to and the quality of education.

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  • Welcoming the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on February 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM EDT

    This morning, the President signed an executive order establishing a new, bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The Commission’s co-chairs – former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson – will bring Republicans and Democrats together to help tackle one of our looming fiscal challenges.

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  • OIRA Dashboard Goes Live

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on February 16, 2010 at 4:40 PM EDT

    Last week, as snow forced federal offices to close, OMB was hard at work opening up more of the Federal government – at least online. Today, we are debuting the OIRA Dashboard, an easy-to-use website that will allow people to track the progress of federal rules and regulations that have been submitted for interagency review and find other relevant information about the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Putting this information online and in an accessible format is one of the ways that OMB is applying the principles of the Open Government Directive to rulemaking and regulatory policy.

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  • A Short History of Deficit Reduction

    Posted by Peter Orszag, Director on February 2, 2010 at 1:31 PM EDT

    It’s been a day since the 2011 Budget was released, and analysts and journalists have written about what it means for individual agencies, specific issues, and states. But let’s not lose sight of the big picture. The President’s Budget represents an important step towards fiscal sustainability: it put forward $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years, even excluding savings from the assumed ramp-down in war funding over time. Including these war savings, the deficit reduction proposed in the President’s Budget rises to $2.1 trillion.

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