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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Tony’s road trips

By Ken Herman | Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 04:00 PM

Administration spokesman Tony Snow, who has acknowledged his participation at GOP fundraising events is an unprecedented role for a White House press secretary, today said he would subtract a vacation day to make up for his absence from the building last Friday when he went to Kentucky and Ohio to do events for Republican candidates.

But, alas, according to an asterisk note at the bottom of the official transcript of today’s White House briefing, Snow will not have to skip a day of vacation to make up for his political travel.

“Mr. Snow, like other commissioned officers in the White House, is construed to be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and therefore is not required to track vacation or leave time,” said the note. “As such, the law permits him to engage in political activity (such as speaking at fundraising events) during normal working hours without the paperwork required of employees who are on a leave system.”

Snow’s political fundraising schedule continues this week with a Thursday stop in Wisconsin and weekend events in Iowa and Illinois, including an event for embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Snow said his White House job always takes precedence over his political travel, and he would cancel a political trip if news developments demanded such.

“It’s one of those things where you figure out, you use your judgment on it,” he said, adding, “And the point I’ve made is if it does interfere with the day job and it starts to detract from it then I stop doing it.”

While he was gone last Friday, Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino pinch hit at the two daily White House briefings with reporters.

“I think Dana did a terrific job,” Snow said.

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A Grant, Six Months and A Ton of Work

By Rebecca Carr | Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 12:36 PM

OMB Watch, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group, spent six months and just under $200,000 to create a massive database of most types of federal spending.

The group publicly launched its federal spending database Tuesday (www.FedSpending.org) more than a year before the federal government plans to launch its own database of federal spending, which is estimated to cost millions of dollars.

The time and cost difference between the two databases prompts the question of why the government’s version will cost so much more.

Gary Bass, director of OMB Watch, said that the government database will be more extensive in that it will include all types of government spending.

The FedSpending.org database includes data from the Federal Assistance Awards Data System, which covers financial assistance but only for domestic spending and not all agencies report to the system. And the data comes from the Federal Procurement Data System, which covers contracts but only for those agencies required to report contracts under the federal acquisition regulations. This excludes Congress and some agencies.

Bass said he hopes that the new database will serve as a prototype for the government run database.

The funding for the database came from the Sunlight Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to teaching the public about Congress through new technologies.

The FedSpending.org database includes data from the Federal Assistance Awards Data System, which covers financial assistance but only for domestic spending and not all agencies report to the system. And the data comes from the Federal Procurement Data System, which covers contracts but only for those agencies required to report contracts under the federal acquisition regulations. This excludes Congress and some agencies.

Bass said he hopes that the new database will serve as a prototype for the government run database.

The funding for the database came from the Sunlight Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to teaching the public about Congress through new technologies.

Permalink | | Categories: Washington

CHAMBLISS OFFICE TOPS IN TRAVEL

By Rebecca Carr | Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 12:13 PM

The corruption scandal that engulfed Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his friends in high places has prompted renewed scrutiny of congressional travel paid for by private interest groups.

The Center for Responsive Politics launched a new database Tuesday on its Website (www.opensecrets.org) that lists congressional travel from July of 2005 to August 21 of this year. Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss and his staff took more trips than any other lawmaker’s office.

Chambliss, the powerful chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and/or his staff took 53 trips during that time frame at a cost of $84,431. That makes Chambliss’ office first among lawmakers in terms of number of congressional trips taken and second, behind Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, in terms of cost, according to the data amassed by the center.

 "By providing these trips, corporations, trade associations, labor unions and other private interests get politicians on their turf, to see and hear their side of an issue-and their side only. The average citizen isn't invited to ride along in the golf cart," Sheila Krumholz, acting director of the nonpartisan center.

Krumholz said Chambliss aides “repeatedly neglected” to fill in the line on the travel disclosure form indicating where he and his aides actually went.

Krister Holladay, Chambliss' chief of staff, said his staff had consistently filled the travel disclosure forms out correctly.

Holladay defended the trips as necessary fact-finding missions to learn more about the state of agriculture and the impact that Washington regulations have on local businesses and farms.

Most of the trips were taken by Chambliss’ staff or where the senator was invited to speak at a conference, Holladay said. The trips included a visit to Minnesota in January hear concerns of the Minnesota Corn Growers. “It’s hardly Bermuda,” he said. The trips in Chambliss’ case were not about luxury, but about finding out the needs of groups like the Dairy Farmers of America or rural healthcare in Georgia.

” I think it (the database) leaves a false perception about what the staff is doing,” said Holladay, who estimates that the senator has more than 70 employees between the Agriculture Committee, his personal staff in Washington and his staff in Georgia.

The senator prefers his staff to get out of the office to see how programs work, Holladay said. He wants staffers to understand the issues, not just read about them. He wants them to be able to provide real and meaningful answers, not just Washington lingo, Holladay said.

Permalink | | Categories: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Washington

What the secretary meant to say…

By Ken Herman | Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 10:24 AM

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings’ opening remarks at today’s White House summit on school violence included weapons-related rhetoric perhaps not quite right for an event sparked by the most recent round of shootings in U.S. schools.

“So I’m very glad that your organizations are here,” she said. “And there will be a little call to arms before the day is over about things that we can do and continue to do together to make sure every community is as prepared as possible.”

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Big bang theories

By Ken Herman | Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 10:19 AM

This one could develop during the day, but White House Press Secretary Tony Snow this morning took some steps toward downplaying the significance of the nuclear test that North Korea announced Sunday.

As part of announcing that U.S. intelligence still has not confirmed whether there was a nuclear test, Snow said the realm of possibilities includes that North Korea simply used something “old and off the shelf” and not something new and nuclear.

“This is a question simply worth posing,” he said.

During a morning session with White House reporters, Snow got into a discussion with the New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg about whether the North Korean claim of a nuclear test was a “big deal.”

Rutenberg, in a question, referred to it as a “massive event.”

“A massive event?” said Snow, spokesman for a White House that urged the U.N. Security Council into emergency session on Monday to deal with it.

Rutenberg then said it was “a big-deal event.”

“A big-deal event?” Snow said.

“It’s not?” said Rutenberg.

“It was an event,” Snow replied, adding, “The earth moved,” a reference to seismic measurements that recorded the event.

In the end, Snow said it was “an important deal” because North Korea, merely by claiming to have set off a nuke, had defied international cautions against such behavior.

Asked if the White House now is trying to play down the significance of the North Korean announcement, Snow said, “No. I was just being snarky with Rutenberg.”

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