Every Friday, we take a quick look back at the week and highlight five members or moments that were especially awesome. Here’s who and what rocked it out this week.
5. The Most Commented Blog goes to Paid vacation. So how many you were secretly hoping the shutdown happened because you needed a couple days of R&R? For some people that was definitely the case but for others it was a passionate discussion about the impact it would have on their pocketbooks and the negative effects on the economy and efficiency. Here’s a great comment…
Grace M Lynch writes,
I would be paying out of my pocket for each day furloughed. That is not a vacation…. You cannot expect to cut the trillion dollar deficit in 6 months or in 2 yrs. I agree to over spending and wasteful abuse, but there should be a systematic way of fixing those problems without dumping the low income and low-middle class citizens into the streets and making the economic problems worse before they get better.
4. The Most Commented Forum goes to GovHelp: I Hate Filing Taxes…So How Do We Fix the Process? Every year it seems like filing taxes is a nightmare for almost everyone.. Is there someway you wish you could improve it? This forum offers great feedback and suggestions from GovLoop members.
A reply by William Blumberg highlights how his state made it easier…
The State of California made it easy for me…yes I said California. Once I could verify my identity (there were a few ways to do this) they populated all the field that the Franchise Tax Board know include my W-2 Form, address, name, and such through their new ReadyReturn program. All electronic with few places where I need to fill in data.
3. The Most Popular Group goes to Cloud Computing, an interesting comment by Christopher Parente on moving beyond ancient systems that cost millions just to maintain and heading to the cloud — EnvisionGovIT. It’s about fixing the fundamental flaws in the government IT acquisition process, people are concerned that the system is badly broken and in need of repair.
2. The Quote of the Week goes to Kathleen Schafer in her blog post, The Reason Why the Budget Battle Will Go On—And How We Change It. Budget talks can be frustrating, Kathleen suggests that a sincere dialogue needs to happen. One of the core issues that needs to be addressed is:
What is our social commitment to each other? At the heart of many budget debates is who gets what and who pays what. A vibrant education system that supplies a well-educated workforce, a well-functioning transportation system that allows commerce and communities to work, disaster relief, public safety, parks and recreation, arts all these things and more are the fabric of our lives and yet we often don’t appreciate the benefits we enjoy and too often feel the disdain for the “cost” that we pay. By bringing these experiences into alignment and acknowledging what we get and what we pay—better decisions and better feelings will emerge.
1. Rockstar of the Week goes to John Geraci for his blog posts Are New Apps Like “Getting Another Flier In The Mail”? and Can Too Much Money Ruin a New Startup? (Yes). In both discussions he touches on the overwhelming amount of apps available. There’s so many apps out there how do we pick which one to use or are we to the point where we just don’t care about them anymore? If people are cycling through apps is there even a point for companies to create their own. Maybe we just need apps that combine multiple apps? John writes, As it stands, I brought it up to a friend on Monday and she said “oh yeah, that app was last week – it’s over, right?
What were some of your favorites this week? Was there anyone or any comments that you thought rocked it?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.