OMB Details Sequestration Plan; DHS Potentially Hit With $4B In Cuts

By: Mickey McCarter

09/17/2012 (12:00am)

The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a report Friday providing an overview of the Obama administration's plans for sequestration, which is set to cut the federal budget across the board beginning Jan. 1, 2013, unless Congress can develop an alternate plan.

For the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the sequestration plan would mean a budget cut of just over $4 billion, according to the report, OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 (Public Law 112-155).

Overall, as spelled out in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (PL 112-25), sequestration would cut $1.2 trillion from the US budget over 10 years. The amount would be divided evenly between defense and non-defense accounts. For the first year of sequestration, that means the White House must cut about $54.67 billion from defense accounts and the same amount from non-defense accounts.

Most of DHS spending falls under non-defense accounts based on how the Budget Control Act defines those terms. Generally speaking, the biggest DHS agencies would take the biggest hits under the sequestration plan with aviation security, immigration enforcement, border security and disaster relief accounts losing roughly half a billion each or more.

The OMB report cautioned, "The estimates and classifications in the report are preliminary. If the sequestration were to occur, the actual results would differ based on changes in law and ongoing legal, budgetary and technical analysis. However, the report leaves no question that the sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments, and core government functions."

The report added, "The number of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, Customs and Border Patrol agents, correctional officers and federal prosecutors would be slashed."

Generally, sequestration reduces non-exempt defense discretionary funding by 9.4 percent and non-exempt non-defense discretionary spending by 8.2 percent. It further cuts non-exempt defense mandatory programs by 10 percent and non-exempt non-defense mandatory programs by 7.6 percent, according to OMB's calculations.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) would experience one of the biggest cuts of $1.27 trillion overall under the sequestration plan. The Federal Air Marshal Service would be cut 8.2 percent by $79 million.

Aviation security spending would be cut $448 million between discretionary and mandatory spending. Surface transportation security would drop $11 million; transportation security support, $85 million. The TSA Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing program would lose $20 million

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would see a cut of $477 million in immigration enforcement efforts. Its automation modernization program would lose $1 million

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would lose roughly $955 million overall, accounting for nearly a quarter of DHS sequestered funds. Border security spending alone would receive a cut of $823 million. Air and marine interdiction efforts would lose $41 million; border security fencing, infrastructure and technology, $33 million.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would lose a total of $878 million under the sequestration plan. Disaster relief funding would take the biggest hit of $580 million.

The US Coast Guard, while by no means unscathed, comes out a little bit better than other agencies with budgets around $10 billion. It would lose $439 million under sequestration. Its operating expenses would lose $297 million altogether; acquisition and construction, $115 million; and oil spill programs, $8 million.

In total, DHS would lose $4.068 billion under the OMB sequestration plan. As Congress had passed no appropriations bill at the time of the OMB report, the White House presumed that budget levels would largely remain at the annualized level based on appropriations for fiscal year 2012.

DHS received $39.6 billion in FY 2012 appropriations under a consolidated spending bill enacted last December. 

http://www.hstoday.us/single-article/omb-details-sequestration-plan-dhs-potentially-hit-with-4b-in-cuts/35814e81f087cb3b3c2524bac38898fa.html

Voting: Historical Perspective

U.S. Voting Rights

When the Constitution was written, only white male property owners (about 10 to 16 percent of the nation's population) had the vote. 

Over the past two centuries, though, the term "government by the people" has become a reality. During the early 1800s, states gradually dropped property requirements for voting. 

Later, groups that had been excluded previously gained the right to vote. Other reforms made the process fairer and easier.

1790

1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote.

1800

1810

1810 Last religious prerequisite for voting is eliminated.

1820

1840

1850 Property ownership and tax requirements eliminated by 1850. Almost all adult white males could vote.

1855 Connecticut adopts the nation's first literacy test for voting. Massachusetts follows suit in 1857. The tests were implemented to discriminate against Irish-Catholic immigrants.

1860

1870 The 15th Amendment is passed. It gives former slaves the right to vote and protects the voting rights of adult male citizens of any race.

1880

1889 Florida adopts a poll tax. Ten other southern states will implement poll taxes.

1890 Mississippi adopts a literacy test to keep African Americans from voting. Numerous other states—not just in the south—also establish literacy tests. However, the tests also exclude many whites from voting. To get around this, states add grandfather clauses that allow those who could vote before 1870, or their descendants, to vote regardless of literacy or tax qualifications.

1900

1910

1913 The 17th Amendment calls for members of the U.S. Senate to be elected directly by the people instead of State Legislatures.

1915 Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement (1910). In Guinn v. United States the Supreme Court rules that the clause is in conflict with the 15th Amendment, thereby outlawing literacy tests for federal elections.

1920

1920 The 19th Amendment guarantees women's suffrage.

1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants all Native Americans the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal elections.

1930

1940

1944 The Supreme Court outlaws "white primaries" in Smith v. Allwright (Texas). In Texas, and other states, primaries were conducted by private associations, which, by definion, could exclude whomever they chose. The Court declares the nomination process to be a public process bound by the terms of 15th Amendment.

1950

1957 The first law to implement the 15th amendment, the Civil Rights Act, is passed. The Act set up the Civil Rights Commission—among its duties is to investigate voter discrimination.

1960

1960 In Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Alabama) the Court outlaws "gerrymandering."

1961 The 23rd Amendment allows voters of the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections.

1964 The 24th Amendment bans the poll tax as a requirement for voting in federal elections.

1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mounts a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, to draw national attention to African-American voting rights.

1965 The Voting Rights Act protects the rights of minority voters and eliminates voting barriers such as the literacy test. The Act is expanded and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982.

1966 The Supreme Court, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, eliminates the poll tax as a qualification for voting in any election. A poll tax was still in use in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.

1966 The Court upholds the Voting Rights Act in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.

1970

1970 Literacy requirements are banned for five years by the 1970 renewal of the Voting Rights Act. At the time, eighteen states still have a literacy requirement in place. In Oregon v. Mitchell, the Court upholds the ban on literacy tests, which is made permanent in 1975. Judge Hugo Black, writing the court's opinion, cited the "long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race" as the reason for their decision.

1971 The 26th amendment sets the minimum voting age at 18.

1972 In Dunn v. Blumstein, the Supreme Court declares that lengthy residence requirements for voting in state and local elections is unconstitutional and suggests that 30 days is an ample period.

1980

1990

1995 The Federal "Motor Voter Law" takes effect, making it easier to register to vote.

2000

2003 Federal Voting Standards and Procedures Act requires states to streamline registration, voting, and other election procedures.

Read more: U.S. Voting Rights http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html#ixzz26j361oIR

Federal Interagency Reentry Council

ational Reentry Resource Center\\\\

Federal Interagency Reentry Council

About | Mission & Goals | Activities

“Reentry provides a major opportunity to reduce recidivism, save taxpayer dollars, and make our communities safer.”—Attorney General Eric Holder

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Justice In January 2011 Attorney General Eric Holder convened the inaugural meeting of the interagency Reentry Council. The purpose of this group is to bring together numerous federal agencies to make communities safer, assist those returning from prison and jail in becoming productive, tax-paying citizens, and save taxpayer dollars by lowering the direct and collateral costs of incarceration. Substantial commitments were made as result of the meeting. The Council also empowered staff—now representing 18 federal departments and agencies—to work towards a number of goals. And the Council agreed to meet every 6 months, with its next meeting to occur in July. What's New August 16: Office of Child Support Enforcement Releases "Voluntary Unemployment," Imputed Income, and Modification Laws and Policies for Incarcerated Noncustodial Parents Fact Sheet August 16: Office of Child Support Enforcement Releases Providing Expedited Review and Modification Assistance Fact Sheet August 16: Office of Child Support Enforcement Releases Realistic Child Support Orders for Incarcerated ParentsFact Sheet June 27: Updated Overview of the Reentry Council Available Download: Overview of the Reentry Council Reentry Council Agencies U.S. Department of Justice U.S. Department of Interior U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Department of Labor U.S. Department of Health and Human Services U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development U.S. Department of Education U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of National Drug Control Policy U.S. Social Security Administration Domestic Policy Council U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office of Personnel Management Office of Management and Budget Photo credit: U.S. Department of Justice Internal Revenue Service Federal Trade Commission U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness Small Business Administration More information: Federal Agencies Promote Grantee Access to Legal Services Attorney General Eric Holder Convenes 3rd Federal Reentry Council Meeting HUD Secretary Clarifies Agency’s Position on Renting HUD-Subsidized Properties to People with Criminal Records EEOC Updates Policy on Criminal Background Checks Presentation on Reentry Council History and Activities Reentry Council Members Reentry Council Staff Working Group Reentry in Brief Reentry MythBusters

Resource: U.S. Dept of Labor. Employment & Training Administration

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Employment & Training Administration

Resources & Information

• Workforce 3 One Financial Management Training Tutorials 
  (Note: - Registration is required for most courses)
  


• Grants.gov:
  A link to a web site that lists all Federal grant programs.
• Grants.gov Applicant Resources:
  There are several tools, documents, user guides, animated tutorials and other useful information available here.
• Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance:
  A listing of federal programs available to all levels of government; public and private, profit and nonprofit organizations and other institutions and individuals.
• Center for Faith-Based & Community Initiatives:
• Federal Audit Clearinghouse:
  Provides audit information and support for Office of Management and Budget (OMB) oversight, including federal award audit requirements and OMB A-133 requirements.
• Office of Management & Budget - Grants Management: 
  Use this site to search grant management policies, bulletins, memorandums and circulars.
• One-Stop Financial Management Guide (TAG)
  
  • Part I: One-Stop Financial Management (July 2002)
  • Part II: ETA Grant Programs Financial Management (UPDATED July 2011)
• DUNS: Dun & Bradstreet website
• ETA Library:
  The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) has produced a wealth of information related to America's workforce system. Search the library for Legislation, Regulations, ETA Advisories, Training & Employment Information Notices.
• GPO Access – Legislative, Executive, Judicial Information and the Federal Register 
• Circulars:Which Circulars Should Grantees Follow? Although there are six grant circulars, any particular Federal grant recipient is only covered by three of them. Commercial contractors are governed by requirements published at 48 CFR. Search this site for more information.

States, Local Governments, & Indian Tribes follow:
A-87	Cost principles
A-102	Administrative requirements (29 CFR, Part 97)
A-133	Audit requirements
Educational Institutions (even if part of a State or local Government) follow:
A-21	Cost principles
A-110	Administrative requirements (29 CFR, Part 95)
A-133	Audit requirements
Non-Profit Organizations follow:
A-122	Cost principles
A-110	Administrative requirements (29 CFR, Part 95)
A-133	Audit requirements
For Profit Commerical Organizations follow:
48 CFR Chapter 1, Part 31	Cost principles
29 CFR, Part 95	Adminsitrative requirements
29 CFR, Part 96	Audit requirements

• Workforce3 One: is an integrated webspace for learning and sharing resources about the demand-driven workforce system. Features include webinars, solutions-based tools, and national and regional resources and information.

Our 'WHOLE WORLD COMMUNITY". The world is much smaller than you think

Seven ways mobile phones have changed lives in Africa

By Tolu Ogunlesi, Special to CNN and Stephanie Busari, CNN

updated 2:02 PM EDT, Fri September 14, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Mobile phone technology has grown significantly over the past decade
• Nigeria has close to 100M mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms market
• We look at ways that mobile phones have changed lives in Africa

Mobile phones have become an essential part of our everyday life. Through a special month-long series, "Our Mobile Society," we examine how phones and tablets are changing the way we live.

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- A little over a decade ago there were about 100,000 phone lines in Nigeria, mostly landlines run by the state-owned telecoms behemoth, NITEL. Today NITEL is dead, and Nigeria has close to 100 million mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms market, according to statistics by the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Across the rest of the continent the trends are similar: between 2000 and 2010, Kenyan mobile phone firm Safaricom saw its subscriber base increase in excess of 500-fold. In 2010 alone the number of mobile phone users in Rwanda grew by 50%, figures from the country's regulatory agency show.

During the early years of mobile in Africa, the Short Messaging Service (SMS) was at the heart of the revolution. Today the next frontier for mobile use in Africa is the internet.

"Mobile is fast becoming the PC of Africa," says Osibo Imhoitsike, market coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa at Norwegian firm Opera, whose mobile browser is enjoying an impressive uptake on the continent. "In fact there isn't really anything more personal than a mobile phone nowadays."

Last October, for the first time ever, the number of Nigerians accessing the internet via their mobiles surpassed the number of desktop internet users, figures from Statcounter show.

The trend has continued since then. Most of those devices will be low-end Nokia phones, tens of millions of which have already been sold on the continent. The more expensive "smartphones" are however also increasing in popularity, as prices drop. Blackberry's market share has been rising in the developing world, bucking the trend in Europe and North America.

Google, for its part, plans to sell 200 million of its Android phones in Africa and it is estimated that by 2016 there will be a billion mobile phones on the continent.

In 2007, President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, said: "In 10 short years, what was once an object of luxury and privilege, the mobile phone, has become a basic necessity in Africa."

Watch video from Kenya on how mobile has changed Africa

Below are seven ways that mobile phones have transformed the continent:

BANKING

M-PESA is a mobile money transfer service launched by Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile operator and Vodafone, in 2007. Five years later M-PESA provides services to 15 million Kenyans (more than a third of the population) and serves as conduit for a fifth of the country's GDP.

In Kenya, Sudan and Gabon half or more of adults used mobile money, according to a survey by the Gates Foundation and the World Bank.

 

How have mobile phones changed Africa?

The runaway success of M-PESA in Kenya is inspiring similar initiatives across the continent, from South Africa to Nigeria to Tunisia, as governments struggle to extend banking services to large numbers of the population -- across sub-Saharan Africa only one in five adults own bank accounts.

Many Africans now use mobile money to pay their bills and airtime, buy goods and make payments to individuals, remittances from relatives living abroad are also largely done via mobile banking.

ACTIVISM

One lesson from the 2011 uprisings across North Africa was that mobile phones, with the infinite opportunities they offer for connection and communication, are able to transform ordinary citizens disenchanted by their governments, into resistance fighters.

Realizing this, the beleaguered Mubarak regime successfully put pressure on Egypt's mobile phone networks to pull the plugs, in a bid to slow down the tempo of opposition activity. And so on January 28, 2011 mobile phone networks in Egypt went dead.

Three years earlier, in the aftermath of bloody elections in Kenya, citizens were able to report violent occurrences via text messages to a server (via the Ushaidi platform) that was viewable by the rest of the world as they happened.

Across the continent mobile phones are also bringing unprecedented levels of openness and transparency to the electoral process, empowering citizens from Cairo to Khartoum to Dakar to Lagos.

EDUCATION

An NGO in Uganda has teamed up with mobile phone companies to create a database for refugees to register their personal details.

Nokia capitalized on the growing popularity of social networking in South Africa to launch MoMath, a mathematics teaching tool that targets users of the instant messaging platform Mxit. Mxit is South Africa's most popular social media platform, with more than 10 million active users in the country, the company says.

The potential for transforming the continent's dysfunctional educational system is immense, as mobile phones -- cheaper to own and easier to run than PCs -- gain ground as tools for delivering teaching content.

It is hoped that mediating education through social networking will help reduce the significant numbers of school-age African children who are not receiving any formal education.

ENTERTAINMENT

A 2009 survey found that "entertainment and information" were the most popular activities for which mobile phones are used in Nigeria, in particular for dialing into favorite radio shows, voting in reality shows, downloading and sharing songs, photos and videos, as well as tweeting.

However companies are creating mobile-only platforms targeted for this market. Africa now teems with online platforms like Kulahappy (a popular online Kenyan "entertainment channel" developed for the mobile screen) and AfriNolly, which bills itself as "African movies in your pocket."

Nigeria's mobile music industry (covering everything from mobile downloads to ringtone and caller-tune subscriptions) is now a multimillion-dollar industry.

Interestingly, Lithuanian mobile social networking site, Eskimi, recently became the second most visited site in Nigeria, after Facebook, and is in the top 10 bracket in several other African countries. Half of the site's seven million-plus active users are Nigerian.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Mobiles have been finding innovative uses in refugee camps, allowing displaced persons to reconnect with family and loved ones.

An NGO, Refugees United, has teamed up with mobile phone companies to create a database for refugees to register their personal details.

The information available on the database allows them to search for people they've lost contact with.

South Africa's 2008 xenophobic attacks inspired the launch of SMS emergency reporting and relief systems.

AGRICULTURE

Mobile phones have made a huge difference in the lives of farmers in a continent where the agriculture sector sis one of the largest employers. Most of these people will be "smallholder farmers," without access to financing or technology.

By serving as platforms for sharing weather information, market prices, and micro-insurance schemes, mobile phones are allowing Africa's farmers to make better decisions, translating into higher-earning potentials. 

Farmers are able to send a text message to find out crop prices in places thousands of kilometers away.

As far back as 2003, Kenya's Agricultural Commodities Exchange partnered with mobile operator Safaricom to launch SokoniSMS64, a text-messaging platform to provide pricing information to farmers.

M-Farm also offers a similar service, while the iCow is a mobile app billed as "the world's first mobile phone cow calendar." It's an SMS and voice service that allows dairy farmers to track their cows gestation, acting in effect as a veterinary midwife. Farmers are also given tips on breeding and nutrition.

HEALTH

A simple text-messaging solution was all 28-year-old Ghanaian doctoral student, Bright Simons needed for his innovative plan to tackle counterfeit medicine in African countries. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 30% of drugs supplied in developing countries are fake. In 2009, nearly 100 Nigerian babies died after they were given teething medicine that contained a solvent usually found in antifreeze.

Simons' pioneering idea was to put unique codes within scratch cards on medicine packaging that buyers can send via SMS to a designated number to find out if the drug is genuine or not.

The system is now being used by several countries in Africa and rolled out to places such as Asia where there are similar problems with counterfeit drugs.

In South Africa there's Impilo, a service that allows people to find healthcare providers anywhere in the country 24 hours a day, using their mobile phones.

Mobile phones are going to play an increasingly important role in mediating the provision of better healthcare to the citizens of African countries. Phone companies are realizing that mobiles are highly effective -- and potentially lucrative -- for the dissemination of health and lifestyle tips, and reminders for doctors' appointments.

In June 2011 a consortium known as the mHealth Alliance organized a Mobile Health Summit -- touted as Africa's first -- in Cape Town. The Alliance describes itself as a "[champion of] the use of mobile technologies to improve health throughout the world."

Stina Backer contributed to this report

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/world/africa/mobile-phones-change-africa/index.html?iid=article_sidebar