21st Century Government
Campaign
to Cut Waste

President Obama and Vice President Biden launch the Campaign to Cut Waste, which will hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the Federal Government.

Read the executive order

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21st Century Government Latest News

  • Calling All Federal Employees: We Need Your Help to Cut Wasteful Spending

    Posted by Katelyn Sabochik on July 14, 2011 at 11:08 AM EST

    Today, Vice President Biden sent an email announcing the launch of the 2011 SAVE Award to federal employees who participated in the SAVE Award in 2009 and 2010. The SAVE Award is a chance for federal employees from across the government to submit their ideas for efficiencies and savings as part of the annual Budget process.

    The Vice President also published an op-ed in McClatchy newspapers about delivering the American taxpayers an accountable government.

    If you're a federal employee, be sure to submit your ideas before July 29, 2011.

    As one of the outstanding federal employees who has participated in the SAVE Award in previous years, you should be the first to know that submissions for the 2011 SAVE Award are open.

    We need your help in identifying ways to cut wasteful federal spending. If you have an idea, take a few minutes right now to submit it -- and let your co-workers know about this great opportunity:

    The SAVE award is a critical part of the Campaign to Cut Waste that President Obama and I announced last month. The Campaign is an Administration-wide initiative to hunt down and eliminate wasteful spending and make government work better. Our goal is efficient spending of every tax dollar, in every agency and department across the federal government.

    We know that federal employees like you know the most about how government works – and in some cases, doesn’t work as efficiently as it should.

    Over the past two years, federal workers have submitted more than 56,000 cost-cutting ideas to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review through the SAVE Award. The ideas you submitted through the 2009 and 2010 SAVE Awards were sent to the appropriate agency for review and dozens were included in the President’s budget proposals.

    Last year’s winner, Trudy Givens, proposed that the federal government stop printing and mailing copies of the Federal Register to thousands of federal employees each day since the same information is available online. Trudy, her husband and her daughter got a chance to discuss her idea with President Obama in the Oval Office last year.

    You could be this year’s winner and meet with President Obama, so make sure you visit WhiteHouse.gov/Save-Award and submit your idea before July 29, 2011.

    Folks, we know that these ideas alone aren’t going to eliminate the deficit or fix our fiscal situation, but they are critical to making sure the American people can trust their government to spend their tax dollars wisely – and to make sure that we are directing resources to the investments that will create good jobs and grow the economy.

    I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas.

    Sincerely,

    Vice President Joe Biden

    P.S. Today, I published an op-ed about delivering an accountable government to the American taxpayers. You can read it here.

    Learn more about Ethics

  • What You Missed: Live Chat on Improving Federal Websites

    Posted by Kasie Coccaro on July 13, 2011 at 2:44 PM EST

    On Tuesday, July 12th the White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips, Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Director of the GSA’s Center for Excellence in Digital Government Sheila Campbell answered your questions from Facebook, Twitter and WhiteHouse.gov on ways to improve the online experience with Federal websites.

    Download Video: mp4 (416MB) | mp3 (40MB)

    As part of the continuing efforts of the Campaign to Cut Waste, an initiative launched last month by the President and Vice President to root out wasteful spending, the Administration has put a halt to the creation of new websites and set a goal of halving the number of separate, stand alone sites over the next year, through consolidation of existing sites or shutting down sites that are no longer needed.

    Includes Video
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  • Campaign to Cut Waste: .gov Effort to Improve Federal Websites

    Posted by Kasie Coccaro on July 13, 2011 at 2:20 PM EST

    Yesterday, we took a major step forward in improving how you get government information and services online.  For the first time, the federal government has published the list of all .gov domains managed by federal executive branch agencies– all 1759 of them! 

    Before today, no one – except for the few folks who manage the .gov registry – has had a clear picture of what our federal web space looks like.   Now, anyone can see how many different domains and websites agencies manage, what topics they cover, which sites may duplicate or overlap with others, and which sites are no longer being actively maintained.  As part of President Obama’s Executive Order on Customer Service and Campaign to Cut Waste, we can identify and consolidate unnecessary websites, saving money and providing better service to the American public.

    We invite you to view the list of .gov domains and give us suggestions in the comments section about how we can best use this information to make good business decisions.  If you’re a developer, download the dataset, make discoveries about the data, or provide us with a creative way to visualize the .gov domain.

    In the next several weeks, agencies will review each domain on the list and gather key metrics that will help determine what action to take – to maintain the site, merge the content into another existing site, or eliminate it.  At the same time, we’ll launch a national dialogue to engage the public in conversation about improving federal websites.  We’ll tap into voices from every corner to ensure we have broad input -- from students, teachers, and librarians to the tech industry, scientists, innovators, and anyone who has an interest in improving the online customer experience with government.

    We kicked off this initiative yesterday with a live video chat, and you can see much of that great conversation by watching the #dotgov hashtag on Twitter. We’ve also enabled commenting on the domains dataset. Making government data transparent can spark the creativity of many bright minds across the country, and we hope you’ll explore, discuss, and remix this data, and maybe even use it to map the .gov domain in ways we haven't seen before.

    The .Gov Task Force will oversee all of these efforts, always looking for more ways to keep the conversation going.

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  • The President’s Executive Order on Improving and Streamlining Regulation by Independent Regulatory Agencies

    Posted by Cass Sunstein on July 11, 2011 at 5:28 PM EST

    Today, President Obama took the next step in his ambitious and unprecedentedly open process for streamlining, improving, and eliminating regulations – by issuing a new Executive Order asking the independent regulatory agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to take new steps to ensure smart, cost-effective regulations, designed to promote economic growth and job creation.  

    In a historic initiative, the President has requested the independent agencies to produce plans to reassess and to streamline their existing regulations, and to disclose those plans for public scrutiny. In addition, the President has asked the independent agencies to follow the cost-saving, burden-reducing principles in his January Executive Order on improving regulation.  

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  • Open for Questions: Live Chat on Improving Federal Websites

    Posted by Erin Lindsay on July 11, 2011 at 4:32 PM EST

    Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 4:00 PM EDT, you’re invited to participate in a live chat with White House Director of Digital Strategy, Macon Phillips, Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra and Director of the GSA’s Center for Excellence in Digital Government, Sheila Campbell to discuss ways to improve the online experience with Federal websites.

    Here’s how you can participate:

    There are nearly 2,000 top-level web domains across the Federal Government.  While many of these sites provide taxpayers with valuable services and information, this proliferation of separate websites creates unnecessary confusion and inefficiency, wastes taxpayer dollars, and makes it difficult for the public to find important government information and resources. 

    As part of the continuing efforts of the Campaign to Cut Waste, an initiative launched last month by the President and Vice President to root out wasteful spending, the Administration has put a halt to the creation of new websites and set a goal of cutting the number of separate, stand alone sites in half over the next year through consolidation of existing sites or shutting down sites that are no longer needed.

    As a first step to understanding what’s working and what isn’t, the Administration will post the list of existing dot gov domains, invite feedback from the public, and will reach out to experts from the public and private sectors to develop an efficient and effective Federal government website policy that will ensure the American people can easily access the information they need moving forward.

    To stay updated on this and other Campaign to Cut Waste efforts sign up for our newsletter.

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  • Doing More with Less: Saving Half a Billion Dollars through IT Reform

    Posted by Secretary Ken Salazar on July 7, 2011 at 4:11 PM EST

    President Obama has challenged his Administration to make government work better for the American people, and to find ways to do more with less. Here at the Department of the Interior, we are proud to play a lead role in helping meet the President’s charge. 

    Today, we are announcing our strategic plan as part of the largest information technology (IT) reform in the federal government. Through this plan, we are making smart changes to IT services across the Department that will make our IT more cost-effective and customer-friendly while saving taxpayers half a billion dollars over the next decade. 

    Some of the common-sense reforms we are undertaking include:

    • Reducing the number of data centers and servers within the Department by up to 50 percent
    • Moving to a single email system at half the current cost
    • Moving to the cloud, with a cloud-based electronic forms system and cloud-based electronic records, documents and content management solutions.

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