The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019 from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
The Congressional Budget Office has released the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019. The CBO expects that the current economic recession will “last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II.” The recession began in December 2007. Some of the main predictions are: 1) This year, the deficit will be $1.2 trillion (8.3% of the GDP) 2) Unemployment rate will increase more than 9 percent at the beginning of 2010 3) Federal revenues will decrease by $166 billion from the amount it was in 2008 4) A further decline of 14 percent in the national average price of a home between 2008 and 2010 5) In 2010, there will be a slow economic revival and a growth of 1.5 percent in the real GDP Continue reading
Current State & Future Outlook of E-Government
The OMB released reports yesterday on the current state and future of E-Government. They include: * Expanding E-Government Results Report * Federal CIO Council Transition Guide * Report to Congress on the Benefits of the E-Government Initiatives Departments and agencies claim that they "continue to make great improvements in the area of security and privacy" and the CIO Council Transition Guide focuses on these areas of interest: - Empowering the Government through Information Sharing - Protecting the Networks & Systems Required to Operate in the Information Age - Tapping the Power of a Collaborative Citizenry Continue reading
RSS feeds (and more) for Congressional YouTube Videos
Josh Tauberer at GovTrack.us, our hero and a prince, has created an easy way to follow new videos posted at Congress's YouTube sites. (See Congress on YouTube).
- Tracking YouTube Videos which aggregates all videos posted by Members to YouTube. The RSS is here.
- Pages for Members at GovTrack.us now highlight their latest YouTube video at the top of the page.
- Feeds/Trackers at GovTrack.us for Members (which you can subscribe to directly, include with your other trackers, or get email updates for) now include their latest video postings.
Survey Results from the Center for Digital Government
The Center for Digital Government has posted survey results of the most tech-savvy counties, cities, and states in 2008. They are: Digital Counties Survey Digital Cities Survey Digital States Survey In addition, the Center also declared winners of the Best of the Web and 2008 Digital Government Achievement Awards (DGAA). “Best of the Web recognizes the most innovative, user-friendly state and local government portals while the Digital Government Achievement Award recognizes outstanding agency and department Web sites and applications.” Continue reading
International News
For those of you who follow international news, there is a new source of international journalism to check out, GlobalPost. It has a mission to "redefine international news for the digital age" (mission statement). It "will try to fill a void left by newspapers and network television, which collectively have pulled back sharply in deploying journalists abroad. If it's successful, GlobalPost will be one of the most spectacular against-the-grain stories since news companies began their accelerating revenue slide almost two years ago" (GlobalPost: A startup treads where big media retreat, By David Westphal, OJR, Jan. 8, 2009). For more background, see the Executive Editor's blog and his links to news coverage of yesterday's launch of the GlobalPost. Continue reading