Latest on OMB/GPO Conflict. Well, the latest continuing resolution, H.J. Res. 122, was signed by the President on Oct. 11 to keep the federal government going until Oct. 18. While apparently there are some differences between this resolution and the one I mentioned here, the language in section 4 appears to be the same, i.e., it forbids the government from using appropriated funds to carry out the OMB memo and from printing the budget through any agency but the GPO. Government Executive Magazine has an interesting story about this, which quotes an OMB spokesperson as saying they expect the Justice Department to declare this unconstitutional. I'm not sure when the Justice Department got that authority. The article also mentions that OMB failed to get planned revisions to the Federal Acquistions Regulation (FAR) released this fall to make the changes in the Memo official. I understand, however, that they working madly on this and want to put draft regs out no later than a month from now.
And finally, thanks to LISNews.com, I found this interesting article by Miriam A. Drake, entitled Cost Cutting or Access Control: OMB Dismantling GPO?. She goes into some of the history of previous attempts to break GPO control over federal printing.
7:25:42 PM 
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