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The administration issued a record amount of heft in the federal rule book in 2015 as President Obama's team, carrying out his orders to work around Congress, pushed his expansive government agenda on environmental, labor and Wall Street policy. With one day to go, the administration added 81,611 pages to the Federal Register, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute's count of the official record-keeping digest of federal agencies' rule-making. It's the highest total on record and the third time Mr. Obama has crossed the 80,000-page level during his presidency, the institute's Clyde Wayne Crews calculated. "This is the pen and...

The federal personnel chief said Tuesday that she does not believe “anyone is personally responsible” for the massive hack of federal employee data and security clearance files and instead blamed the breach on old computer systems and the hackers themselves. “We have legacy systems that are very old,” Katherine Archuleta, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told Senate lawmakers at a hearing on the intrusion. “It’s an enterprise-wide problem. I don’t believe anyone is personally responsible.”

The law violated by the Obama administration when it secretly exchanged five Guantanamo terrorists for an Army solider captured by the Taliban after deserting his post is punishable by jail, suspension and removal of office, according to written White House rules. The nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), confirmed this week that the president broke a “clear and unambiguous” law when he swapped the high-level terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl, an Army sergeant who went AWOL in Afghanistan in 2009. According to rules issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the violation is...

Only one problem: the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo August 24, 2012 reminding federal employees that President Obama signed a directive on November 18, 2011 that offered specific guidelines as to the handling of records (see memo page 3 below).

Joseph J. Dioguardi is a former member of Congress from New York and Certified Public Accountant. Dioguardi in his book “Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up” lists the top twelve gimmicks Congress uses to hide the true costs of government from the people. These gimmicks have been used for decades by both Republican and Democrat administrations, Congresses under both parties and government agencies. The idea behind these gimmicks is to “[K]eep Americans in the dark (or – I should say – in the red!), writes, Dioguardi. Dioguardi calls this “plastic budgeting”. As David A. Stockman, former Director of the Office...

Obama told 25 governors on a conference call that the shutdown "is hurting local economies." President Obama hit Congressional Republicans on Friday telling a bipartisan group of governors that the "brinksmanship strategy" of shutting down the government and threatening default is something "the country can't afford." Obama made the comments to 25 governors on a conference call aimed at discussing the effect of the federal shutdown on state budgets and the overall economy, according to a White House readout of the call....... Obama was joined on the call by senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, NEC Director Gene Sperling, Deputy Office of...

A single person shut down the entire U.S. government for the first time in 17 years. Not a congressman, but an unelected woman named Sylvia Burwell who, as the relatively new director of the Office of Management and Budget, sent the email that initiated the process that has closed national parks, visitors’ centers and even the “panda-cam” at the National Zoo. "Agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations," Burwell wrote in a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies Monday night as it became clear lawmakers had failed to agree on...

OMB: Obama Will Become First President to Spend $4T in One Year April 10, 2013 In the historical tables it released along with President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget proposal this morning, the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that in fiscal 2016 it expects Obama to become the first president in the nation's history to preside over a federal government that spends more than $4 trillion in one year. The OMB's historical tables also reveal that the White House does not expect this administration to ever run an annual deficit as low as $458.5 billion, which was...

White House to furlough 480 staffers By Amie Parnes - 04/01/13 02:44 PM ET The White House announced Monday that 480 staffers who work at the Office of Management and Budget have received furlough notices requiring that they take unpaid days off due to the sequester. White House press secretary Jay Carney made the announcement during a White House briefing on Monday, but he would not get into details about whether other members of the White House staff, including those who work closest to President Obama in the West Wing, received any notices. Carney told reporters that other notices could...

If you want a thorough agency-by-agency rundown of the budget cuts sequestration would deliver, the Office of Management and Budget has you covered. In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress. The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose...

EXECUTIVE ORDER - - - - - - - CLOSING OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2012 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. All executive branch departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 2012, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided in section 2 of this order. Sec. 2. The heads of executive branch departments and agencies...

Furious over the White House telling defense companies to ignore federal law requiring them to warn employees of possible layoffs from pending defense cuts, two key Republicans are demanding to know the legal rationale behind the guidance. Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire fired off a letter Monday night to Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, questioning the agency’s legal authority to make the promises, which they said could put taxpayers on the hook for “billions of dollars.” Mr. Zients‘ letter told private companies not only that they didn’t...

When the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget was called before the House Armed Services Committee to talk about sequestration Wednesday morning, he didn’t mince words in blaming Republicans for the looming budget cliff. “The root cause of the problem today is the refusal of Republicans to acknowledge that the top two percent of Americans have to pay their fair share,” an exasperated Jeffrey Zients said, after committee members pressed him to discuss the fiscal implications of sequestration and how it might be avoided.

MEN OF HONOR Apparently, if you want to cheat on your wife or spurn the mother of your unborn child, cover up and easily settle your institution's criminal efforts to help Americans avoid paying their federal income taxes, or just avoid paying your own fair share, the place to be is on President Barack Obama's economic-recovery advisory board. Because that's where Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Group Americas, the U.S. arm of one of Switzerland's largest banks, UBS AG, sits, as do Charles E. Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation, Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management of...

The “serious concerns” of U.S. Treasury officials involving a risky $535 million infusion for a fly by night solar panel firm were ignored as the deal was fast-tracked by the Obama Administration, according to a federal audit released this week. Bankrolled by Obama fundraiser George Kaiser, the now-defunct northern California company (Solyndra) got more than half a billion dollars from the U.S. government to promote green energy. Instead, it abruptly folded last fall, stiffing American taxpayers and laying off more than 1,000 workers. From the start, it was a controversial deal that was suspiciously rushed through for a politically-connected...

Many Insiders contended that the White House, in weighing the political implications of issuing these rules, will “wait for a less turbulent political environment to move forward”—after the November election passes. “OMB is going to hold on to the [regulations] until after the election. No matter what the [regulations] say, they are going to send shock waves through the important Rust Belt states. To release [them] earlier would be a certain self-imposed wound,” one Insider said. Some Insiders maintained that Obama already handed a victory to his environmental base when he rejected a permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline...

Jeffrey Zients will serve as President Obama's new acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but the president's decision might undercut attacks on Republican Mitt Romney's career as a venture capitalist, because Zients and Romney are both alumni of Bain & Company. "I'm pleased to designate Jeff Zients to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Since day one, Jeff has demonstrated superb judgment and has provided sound advice on a whole host of issues," Obama said in a statement accompanying the announcement today.

With less than a month to go before President Obama is required by law to submit a budget to Congress (February 6th), Mr. Obama’s decision today to make Jack Lew White House chief of staff leaves deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Heather Higginbottom to take Mr. Lew’s place as the director of OMB. As The Hill newspaper reports, Ms. Higginbottom has only served one month in her present role as deputy director of OMB and is considered a “controversial appointee” due to her thin, some would say “nonexistent”, budgetary resume. Prior to becoming deputy director...

With less than a month to go before President Obama is required by law to submit a budget to Congress (February 6th), Mr. Obama’s decision today to make Jack Lew White House chief of staff leaves deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Heather Higginbottom to take Mr. Lew’s place as the director of OMB. As The Hill newspaper reports, Ms. Higginbottom has only served one month in her present role as deputy director of OMB and is considered a “controversial appointee” due to her thin–some would say “nonexistent”–budgetary resume. Prior to becoming deputy director of OMB,...

Washington, DC -- December 1, 2011 Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced that it filed today separate lawsuits against the Obama Department of Energy and Office and Management and Budget to obtain records regarding the taxpayer funded government loan provided to the now bankrupt green energy company Solyndra. On September 5, 2011, Judicial Watch submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking the following information: Any and all records regarding, concerning or related to the issuance of loan guarantees to Solyndra LLC, Solyndra Inc., Solyndra Fab 2 LLC, and/or 360 Degree Solar...