Federal CIO Kundra Takes Leave of Absence After Woes 193
CWmike writes "The fallout from Thursday's arrests of a District of Columbia IT security official and contractor quickly raised questions about the fate of Vivek Kundra, the new federal CIO who until recently ran the office now mired in bribery allegations. Appointed by President Barack Obama as CIO less than two weeks ago, Kundra was CTO for the District of Columbia. But yesterday, Kundra's former office in a downtown government building was a crime scene. A White House official, speaking on background, confirmed today that Kundra took a leave of absence from his new CIO job shortly after federal investigators arrested two men in the DC government office on bribery charges. The official would not elaborate on the reasons for the leave; there were no indications yesterday that Kundra was involved in any wrongdoing. Kundra's decision could slow his plan to create a 'revolution' in the federal government's use of technology."
He's not accused of anything (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's not accused of anything (Score:5, Insightful)
As a contractor/associate of other contractors in the past with DC govt, I can assure you he is an a-hole, corrupt, and lacks the intelligence and qualifications necessary for the position. In his defense, you can say this about pretty much anyone in DC govt.
I can only hope this helps bring him down. His own employees seem to loathe him. Ultimately, as the CIO he is supposed to take responsibility for his underlings. He may not have been guilty, but he is ultimately responsible for the office and everything that happens, particular at a high level like contracting.
Re:Change you can believe in (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, its change. No tax issues here.
He's a politician from Chicago. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the government under Obama was going to be made of rainbows and kittens glued together with hope. Are you telling me Obama's administration is as corrupt as any other but also has a one-party supermajority Congress and a cheerleading media backing it?
He's a successful politician from the Chicago machine, which makes Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall look like minor pranks on a boy scout campout. What did you expect?
*I* expect ongoing machine corruption scaled up to the national level, culminating in something to dwarf the Teapot Dome scandal and any corruption in any other administration since than (including the Clinton and both Bush administrations).
But then I've dealt with Chicago politics a little bit... (Thank Murphy I've never had to live there.)
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you telling me Obama's administration is as corrupt as any other...
Not quite?
If it were, we wouldn't be finding out about this corruption until two years into their term, just like any other democrat. (Republicans don't get exposed until after they leave office, or piss off too many constituents.)
So yes, this IS a very big change from the way things used to be.
The only completely inexplicable "change" here is that people don't really seem to care about the obvious amount of corruption and just plain incompetence going around. How many of his cabinet picks inexplicably can't fill out their taxes properly? I don't know about you, but it doesn't give me any confidence when the treasury secretary can't even do his taxes right. This is the guy we're trusting to fix the banking mess?
While it's nice to see this stuff doesn't come out years after it happens (Oh wait, most of the tax problems were years old, and only corrected a short time before confirmations. Hell, Daschle knew about his tax problems early last year but didn't come clean until he was tapped for the cabinet.), but that doesn't give them the pass on screwing up that they're getting.
No matter the race, creed, or political party, they're dirty. The only change we're getting is how this crap is presented.
Re:Richardson (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you think the "neo-cons" were trying to "destroy America"?
If anything it would seem the problem was that they were so gung-ho about protecting America that they just started making shit up.
Re:He's not accused of anything (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree. If he's such a poor manager that he missed something like his direct report having "ghost employees" and taking kick backs then I don't think he's competent enough to be the federal CIO. Five years is a long time to not notice something was up.
If he's not corrupt then he's incompetent. Either way, he's not qualified.
Re:Change you can believe in (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's change, cuz this level of corruption in such a young administration is unprecedented.
Believe it!
Re:Change you can believe in (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but it doesn't give me any confidence when the treasury secretary can't even do his taxes right.
I hate to sound like a shill for Obama, but the focus of this whole ordeal did bother me somewhat for the simple reason that it actually did sound somewhat plausible that he was confused by the tax code.
Have you ever tried to do your own taxes....unassisted? The American tax code is an absolute nightmare at the present.
I'm not sure that a flat tax or the FairTax proposal are good options. However, this is a debate we need to be having at the forefront. Our financial system is being dramatically reshaped, and it's about time that we addressed our massively bloated tax code. Make it simple, and it'll be far easier to audit and enforce.
Re:Richardson (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, both of them never kept a single promise. BOTH grew gov like there was no tomorrow. And as to lower taxes combined with no deficit, well, that is well known. Taxes actually ended up higher in total under reagan, just shifted off his buddies. Though W did lower taxes a bit ( more on his buddies), but made reagan's #1 deficit look amateurish.
Second, fixing the economy isn't really the government's job. They just shouldn't be screwing with it. In fact, it's probably only as bad as it is because the government was interfering with it so much in the first place.
As a Libertarian, I agree with you. But the neo-cons pushed deregulations ONLY when it helped their friends. They left a great deal in place that was damaging, and worse backed their friends, rather than worry about the nation. In fact, the ONLY time that these neo-cons really stuck to doing the right thing with this gov/economy was only once they had totally F'ed things up and they saw the writing on the wall WRT voters.
The truth is that the economy will go back up despite the damage Bush and Obama have done with their stupid bail outs. Going up and down is just part of what economies do.
Yeah. It worked great for us from 1929-1933, and for the Japanese all through the 90's till current. What I find interesting is that most of the top economists say that we are not spending enough on stimulus, but they believe that this is step in right direction. Otherwise, we will end up like the other 2 time periods.
It's really a bit disappointing that Obama is going to take all the credit when things start going back up because the coincidence is going to reinforce his plans for even bigger, more intrusive government.
And this is where we differ. IFF Obama focus on getting the economy GOING, and once going focuses on balancing the budget with a balanced budget amendment ( the anti-neo-con or anti-republican amendment), he will be one of my hero's. As it is, I noticed that the first spending bill was LOADED with pork (20B), and the new one that just passed is "LOADED" with 8Billion of "pork" of an ~.5 Trill bill. Of course, that compares to the neo-cons spending 25-30B/year on a 300B spending bill, but now calling this major pork. I really do not care as long as the budget gets balanced and we get back to paying off reagan's and W's insane debts.
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Re:Richardson (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I voted for Ron the first time around.
He's a good protest vote. Some of his ideas are, frankly, very poorly informed, but he's at least earnest if not super informed or educated on many subjects.
BUT, we could not afford to have another W get in.
This is why we need electoral reform.
I had some issues with McCain, but somewhat considered him. That was gone once he picked the ultimate neo-con as running mate.
Yeah, that was some really lousy strategy. He had a shot, but he needed to appeal to moderates in the center. It's not like the far right wasn't going to vote for him anyway simply to stop Obama who they perceive as a threat. Palin did exactly the opposite. It did not get him any real new votes and drove away all the moderates.
I am STILL hopeful that Obama is an honest pol.
I have hope to. He honestly seems to be trying. He's come through fairly well for things in his power as executive and he's fighting hard for healthcare and tax reforms we really, really need and he promised to try to deliver.
BUT as I look at all the ppl that he has put around himself, they appear to be as corrupt as any neo-con.
Hs appointments to date have been a mixed bag. Some I strongly disapprove of, but some I strongly approve of. If you look at his cabinet there are a few that really stand out like: Kathleen Sebelius, Steven Chu, Eric Shinseki, Lisa Jackson, and Peter Orszag. They all seem leaps and bounds more competent and significantly less corrupt than many of their predecessors. Appointments like Chu are what keep my hope alive. Even Kundra seems to be at least more competent. We'll have to see how this potential corruption turns out.
I agree (Score:2, Insightful)
To be fair, he was only CIO of DC for 3 of the 5 years that the misfeasance was going on. Despite this I have to go with the "buck stops" rule. He's responsible by inheritance. If it were not so, delegation of responsibility would no longer work.