Office of Management and Budget

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Office of Management and Budget

How $16 Muffins Caused The White House To Crack Down On Conference Spending

Ryan J. Reilly | September 22, 2011, 10:21AM

The Justice Department's purchase of muffins at $16 a pop has resulted in the White House ordering all agencies and departments to review conference spending.

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Topics: Justice Department, Obama Administration, Office of Management and Budget, White House

House Dems, GOP Trade Jabs Over Shutdown

Susan Crabtree | February 18, 2011, 3:41PM

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

House Democratic and Republican leaders traded jabs over the possibility of a government shutdown Friday -- as the two sides remained deeply divided on how far to go in slashing government programs.

The House continued slogging through dozens of amendments to a bill that would cut federal spending by $61 billion over the next six months, and it's unlikely they'll be able to come to an agreement with Senate Democrats on the numbers before their deadline of March 4.

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Topics: Budget Cutting, Government shutdown, Jack Lew , John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Office of Management and Budget

Drug Enforcement Agency

Marijuana Backers To GOPers: Why Not Cut The DEA Budget?

Ryan J. Reilly | February 3, 2011, 11:15AM

With Republicans in the House looking to cut down on spending in the next fiscal year, supporters of legalizing marijuana have a suggestion for where they should start -- the Drug Enforcement Agency's budget.

Sure, they know it's a long shot. But the Marijuana Policy Project's Steve Fox told TPM it makes a lot of sense.

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Topics: Barack Obama, DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, Drugs, Marijuana, Office of Management and Budget

Wikileaks

Major Defense Contractor Blocks Anything With 'WikiLeaks' In URL

Ryan J. Reilly | December 3, 2010, 7:38PM

The nation's biggest defense contractors, who employ thousands of people with security clearances, are taking steps to restrict their access to Wikileaks, including one company which is blocking employees from accessing any website, including news stories, with "wikileaks" in the URL.

An employee of one major defense contractor told TPM that she wanted to read our report on the Library of Congress blocking access to WikiLeaks, but was unable to do so because the company blocked the webpage.

"I've clicked on a lot of headlines on many different news sites and any link that includes the dreaded letter sequence ends up displaying the company's 'Access Denied' page," the employee wrote.

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Topics: Contractors, Defense Contractors, Defense Department, Homeland Security, Military Contractors, Office of Management and Budget, TPMTech, Wikileaks

Wikileaks

White House Tells All Federal Agencies To Prohibit Unauthorized Employees From Wikileaks Site

Rachel Slajda | December 3, 2010, 5:26PM

The Office of Management and Budget today directed all federal agencies to bar unauthorized employees from accessing the Wikileaks web site and its leaked diplomatic cables.

In an email to federal agencies obtained by TPM, the OMB's general counsel directed the agencies to immediately tell their employees to "safeguard classified information" by not accessing Wikileaks over the Internet.

Classified information, the OMB notes, "remains classified ... until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority." Employees may not view classified info over a non-classified system (i.e., the Internet), the OMB says, "as doing so risks that material still classified will be placed onto non-classified systems."

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Topics: Library of Congress, Office of Management and Budget, TPMTech, White House , Wikileaks

Gulf Coast Oil Spill

WH Defends Oil Spill Predictions After Report Claims It Hid Worst-Case Numbers

Rachel Slajda | October 7, 2010, 9:19AM

Adm. Thad Allen gives a press conference about the oil spill in June.

The presidential oil spill commission Wednesday released a series of preliminary reports on how the BP oil disaster was handled. In one of the reports, the commission found that the White House stopped NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, from releasing its worst case scenario numbers in the days after the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

"By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow ... the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem," the report reads.

The story from the White House, needless to say, differs.