Through all of the partisan dysfunction our nation has endured in recent years, the federal budgeting process nonetheless managed to stagger along. Until October 1st. Then the U.S. Government experienced its first shutdown since 1995. The event was bracing because we have come to view partisan discord and 11th-hour negotiations as part of the federal […]
Riddle: “What goes up and never comes down?” Answer: “Federal spending” Federal spending – especially if you measure it in constant dollars – hasn’t ALWAYS increased. But, let’s face it, it mostly has. As Washingtonians, we’ve grown comfortable in the warm blanket the federal government provides. Year after year demand, fueled through federal direct spending […]
When faced with thousands of pages of budget submissions and hundreds of megabytes of data, there is nothing so wonderful as a good infographic to make sense of it all. We’ve searched the web to find the best sites and included them here. Continue to check back because as we find others we’ll add them […]
This morning the District of Columbia Building Industry Association (DCBIA) hosted its seminar entitled “GSA Downsizing – A Perfect Storm Looming”, consisting of a panel of government officials and private sector professionals. We were there and here is some of what we learned: Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton reported that Congress is expected to (finally) hold […]
In last week’s election, the Republicans won majority control of the Senate and further solidified their control of the House of Representatives. This means that the Republicans will lead the 114th Congress when it convenes next year. Is this event positive for federal property investors? The answer is a resounding yes, but not necessarily for any ideological reason. It is simply […]
One of the lessons learned from the October shutdown, as recently discussed on this blog, is that GSA rent is subject to congressional appropriations even though the Federal Buildings Fund (FBF) has the needed money. In fact, the FBF is flush with rents collected from GSA customer agencies that expect the nation’s landlord to professionally maintain […]
The Sequester has arrived–mostly unexpected, entirely unwelcome and apparently it intends to hang around a while. What does it mean for landlords of federal-leased properties? Fortunately, probably not much. At least not much new. The federal government has been staggering from crisis to crisis for years. A Look at the Cuts The great concern with sequestration is […]
It’s Memorial Day weekend and it happens to also be the first weekend of a new endeavor by our team to post a new article every single calendar day. So, while others frolic on the beach or man their grills, we write. Our topic this weekend is obvious: we will write about our nation’s military […]
Today we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America. We thought it’s also worth recognizing another important birthday on this July 4th – that of Calvin Coolidge who was born July 4, 1872 and later went on to become the 30th president of our nation. Coolidge’s […]
If you think getting an immigration bill, say, or healthcare reform through a bitterly divided Congress is hard, try an annual budget. In mid-September, Congress, having been unable to agree on that budget, passed what is called a continuing resolution (CR), an instrument that, absent just such an agreed-upon budget, allows for the ongoing funding […]
Surprisingly, the U.S. Constitution makes no provisions for a federal budget and, in fact, the federal government operated without a comprehensive budget process until 1921. The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which has been amended many times, provides for a federal budget system and requires the President to prepare and submit an annual budget […]
There’s good news if you’re a federal employee, assuming that President Obama’s proposed 2016 budget is enacted intact: It will come with a 1.3 percent pay increase. Now, 1.3 percent isn’t a big hike, but it’s better than the 1 percent that came in FY 2015, and certainly better than the years that were leaner […]
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has been suffering through budget cuts that have dramatically reduced funding for the construction, acquisition, renovations and even the basic maintenance of federal buildings. This has served to increase the federal government’s reliance on leased space, benefitting private-sector landlords. This article seeks to cast some light on what is […]
Kevin Warsh, a Federal Reserve governor during the Great Recession, noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this year, “If you’ve seen one financial crisis, you’ve seen one financial crisis.” That is to say, all…
