Little Recognition Given to Public Service Workers

The Washington Post

We asked:

It’s Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW). Anything special happening in your workplace to honor the efforts of you and your colleagues? How much of a difference do you believe this week can make when it comes to the public’s perception of federal workers?

Comments

You said:

As far as public perception, I think that it’s just going to be received by the public as just another pat on the back for a bunch of spoiled feds instead of what it should be: a sincere thank-you for a job well done for federal employees nationwide. Maybe I should be glad it’s low-key so I don’t have to listen to a bunch of people complain about us again.

Veterans Affairs employee

Not at all, unless you count me bringing in donuts today.

Craig O’Brien, Consumer Product Safety Commission

Last Friday at the State Department, Foreign Service Day was held. The American Foreign Service Association is the master of ceremonies at this annual event, in the south (“Flag”) lobby of the department.

One Foreign Service career staff person, who passed away at an overseas post in December 2010 from a tropical disease, was the center of the recognition — it has been a fairly bloodless 18 months.

Her name went up on the stone tablet bearing the names of those who have died while on active service beyond the oceans.

Matthew Johnson, Deputy for Management Affairs, U.S. Mission Nigeria Resident at Embassy Abuja

From GovLoop.com

Now is an excellent time to reward those who have gone the extra mile.

These are very harsh times for govvies: formal complaints are up across the board and the work environment is becoming increasingly hostile. We need these sorts of activities to provide a counterbalance to the fear. A great work environment is not linked to big budgets. There are many ways to reward employees and to provide incentives that do not require big budgets such as dog parks, doggie day care, child care, compressed schedules, telework, and other discretionary benefits.

Megan Eskey, Computer Engineer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Unfortunately, I don’t even think that PSRW hit many agencies’ radar screens.

Erin Duggins, Senior Adviser, United States Agency for International Development

We’ve had food every day this week, along with theme days for dressing up. I work for a state agency, and we do more than most other agencies in the state. Our execs bought pizza and cake yesterday & handed out certificates of appreciation.

A nice gesture, but again, “Yawn.”

Marian Henderson, Management Analyst II, Nevada Department of Taxation

GovLoop.com is a social networking site for government employees.

The POPVOX Blog: Issues Focus - Elder Care

POPVOX Blog:

by rachna on February 15, 2012

Nearly one in four households provide care to someone who is aged. With that in mind, we pulled together some bills that are related to elder care. We hope you'll weigh in on these bills on POPVOX and share with your friends and networks.

Issue Spotlight: Elder Care

S 464 The End Abuse in Later Life Act establishes a grant program to enhance training and services to prevent abuse in later life.

HR 577 The Elder Abuse Prevention Act prevents the abuse and exploitation of older individuals.

S 1744 The Guardian Accountability and Senior Protection Act provides funding for State courts to assess and improves the handling of proceedings relating to adult guardianship and conservatorship, authorizes the Attorney General to carry out a pilot program for the conduct of background checks on individuals to be appointed as guardians or conservators, and promotes the widespread adoption of information technology to better monitor, report, and audit conservatorships of protected persons.

S 462 The Elder Abuse Victims Act (and HR 2564) better protects, serves, and advances the rights of victims of elder abuse and exploitation by establishing a program to encourage States and other qualified entities to create jobs designed to hold offenders accountable, enhance the capacity of the justice system to investigate, pursue, and prosecute elder abuse cases.

S 465 The Senior Financial Empowerment Act prevents mail, telemarketing, and Internet fraud targeting seniors in the United States, to promote efforts to increase public awareness of the enormous impact that mail, telemarketing, and Internet fraud have on seniors, to educate the public, seniors, and their families, and their caregivers about how to identify and combat fraudulent activity.

S 525 The Positive Aging Act amends the Public Health Service Act to provide for integration of mental health services and mental health treatment outreach teams.

S 604 The Senior Mental Health Access Improvement Act provides for the coverage of marriage and family therapist services and mental health counselor services under part B of the Medicare program.

S 1819 The Strengthening Services for America's Seniors Act amends the Older Americans Act of 1965 to improve programs and services.

And one California bill AB332, which passed 78-0, increases the fines from $1,000 to $2,500 for embezzlement, forgery, fraud or identity theft against an elder or dependent adult for a misdemeanor offense of less than $950. The bill also enables felony charges for some theft crimes against the elderly with fines of up to $10,000. The increased penalties are in addition to any jail or prison sentences. The bill was approved by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State on September 30, 2011.

More information can be found at the Center of Excellence on Elder Abuse and Neglect at U.C. Irvine.

Here is a good eBook on investigating financial exploitation of the elderly. Here is a good .pdf on financial exploitation of elderly and impaired adults.

More information about my family's situation can be found here.

Who Will Destroy the World?

The Millionaire's Tax

President Obama defined what he believes should be the minimum "fair share" for millionaires and billionaires to pay in taxes. His answer: At least 30% of their income. States are also getting onboard. Here is a link to the campaign in California.

In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%. Financial inequality was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 42.7%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50.3%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.

However, after the Great Recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%. The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%. During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.

More information can be found here. Here is a graph of the tax burdens around the world.

The Paradigm Shift

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), radio address, October 26, 1939

National Plan for OpenGov

“In all parts of the world, we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable. And now, we must build on that progress. And when we gather back here next year, we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency; to fight corruption; to energize civic engagement; to leverage new technologies so that we strengthen the foundations of freedom in our own countries, while living up to the ideals that can light the world.”

--President Barack Obama, September 23, 2010


The Open Government Plan of the United States will formally launch on September 20, on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. We are busy finalizing our National Action Plan but wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all of the comments that we received during our public consultation. All of the responsive comments that we received can be found here.

In the meantime, we hope that you’ll stay tuned to all of the upcoming events next Tuesday in New York, including the signing of the Open Government Declaration, which will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) Fact Sheet provides a succint overview of the objectives of the plan.

The U.S. National Action Plan includes important initiatives to support the relationship between job creators and the government, including a commitment to publish guidelines on how to access scientific data produced through unclassified federal research funding, the ability to tap into their expertise on relevant public policy deliberations through an “ExpertNet” platform, and a global “Apps” competition drawing a global cadre of scientists and concerned citizens to harness open data to solve global challenges including weather impacts and the depletion of ocean resources.

We remain inspired by the growing number of open innovators and are confident this plan will accelerate this trend and increase the probability we invent our way out of some of the most pressing challenges that confront us.



US National Action Plan Final 2

Bob Doughty - b. May 26, 1924 d. August 12, 2011

Bob was one of the kindest people I have ever known. He and my mother were married for 23 years. He was a wonderful watercolor artist too. You can read more about him on the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles blog or in his obituary. Plans are coming together, thanks to so much help from friends and family. Thanks to Ginny, we are having his memorial at Portuguese Bend beach on Monday August 29 at 11 am, followed by a potluck picnic on the beach. Space is limited at the beach and we need to give a list of names to the gatekeeper, so if you'd like to come, please let us know as soon as you can. There's plenty of parking above the beach and shuttles will be available to take you down to the sand. And if you'd like to bring a dish to share, that would be great. Also great, if you'd like to share a few memories, there will be time during the service for it. Your presence will be a great pleasure to me. Love, Nancie (my mom)

Portuguese Bend
4100 Palos Verdes Drive South (opposite Schooner Drive)
Rancho Palos Verdes

Palindrome

This is a video that was submitted to a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. I am now 50 years old. It surprises me how much I still feel 20.

Open Government is a Process. The Best Open Leaders Model Optimism 2.0. Innovators Don't Conquer, They Pioneer.

Presentation to Federal Intranet Content Managers Lightning Rounds on May 12, 2011

View more presentations from Megan Eskey

New WikiBills Added to LexPop

From the LexPop BlogPop

Thanks to a great post by Megan Eskey, we’ve added two new WikiBills to LexPop. There is now a page on Protection from Abuse and Domestic Violence and one on Testator and Heir Protection.

Of course, adding the pages isn’t a lot of work. The real challenge is adding substantive content and working together to create something cohesive and useful. Adding the pages is just a start (in fact, they’ll probably have to be split into separate pages before long), but it’s still a start. At the moment, we haven’t started broadly publicizing LexPop, so it may be awhile before we get many edits, but this is a move in the direction we want to go.

Happy editing!

Co-creation of laws: it starts now. Policy Drives are projects on LexPop that are sponsored by a legislator. That is, a legislator says they'll introduce a bill made on LexPop on a given subject, and we develop it on the site. Please contact your elected representatives if you'd like to see a policy drive in your state. Here is a great blog on how to create policy on a wiki.

For government employees:

The Anti-Lobbying Act does not prohibit government employees from participating in lobbying activities while they are on personal time. Federal employees retain a constitutional right (as recognized by 5 USC Section 7211) to petition Congress, provided they act in a personal capacity or in a representative capacity on behalf of outside persons or organizations. The so-called anti-representation statutes (18 USC Sections 203 and 205) do not apply in relation to these personal capacity communications directed to legislative officials. Employees communicating with Congress on behalf of themselves or some other group or cause should, however, provide a disclaimer which indicates that the views expressed are those of the employee or others and do not necessarily reflect the position of the individual's employing agency. In addition, though many Agencies have a "personal use policy" to permit the minimal use of government resources, employees may not use their government computer, phone, fax or other supplies to conduct personal lobbying activities, even when on personal time, as that would constitute use of resources secured with appropriated funds for lobbying activities.

More information about my family's situation can be found here.