Government is more reliant than ever on private-sector contractors, a Bloomberg Government Study ranking the top 200 federal suppliers says. Downsizing in the 1990s cost hundreds of thousands of federal employees their jobs, but if Congress and the administration let...
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Photograph by Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-16 Fighting Falcon jet during a ceremony to commemorate the 4,500th delivery of the plane.
Budget Cuts Would Hit Contractors Hard
Photograph by Whitney Curtis/Getty Images
Mitt Romney during a campaign event at the military contractor Production Products on June 7, 2012 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Mitt Romney Finds Out It’s Good to Be the King
Clinching a presidential nomination is good for a campaign’s pocketbook. Just ask Mitt Romney, who in his first full month as the presumptive Republican nominee pulled in almost $77 million along with the Republican National Committee. That was higher than...
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Photograph by Elaine Thompson/AP Photo
A service station in Mercer Island, Wash.
Data Mine: $3.56 Gas and More
Here’s today’s readout on some indicators worth watching: – The Gallup Poll: President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney in a statistical dead heat: The seven-day average of Gallup’s daily tracking: May 31 through June 6, Obama 45 percent, Romney...
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Photograph by Dennis Brack/Bloomberg
The CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
CIA Gets Slap on the Wrist for Being Deceptive
The Central Intelligence Agency was dinged for deception yesterday by a U.S. government watchdog office. You read that right. Our spy agency received a slap on the wrist from the Government Accountability Office, which arbitrates contract disputes. The GAO faulted...
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Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A working class section of Utica, New York. Citing Utica's weakening financial margins over the past two years, Fitch Ratings downgraded its credit rating on Utica by two notches to a triple-B, two rungs above junk territory.
Romney Sharpens Attack on Obama’s ‘Moral Failures’
Updated 2:55 p.m. ET Mitt Romney added a tougher layer today to his already harsh critique of President Barack Obama’s economic record: Not only have his policies been ineffective, they’ve been morally bankrupt. In a speech in St. Louis County,...
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Photograph by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Job seekers at an orientation meeting in Los Angeles.
Obama Blames Congress on Jobs
President Barack Obama’s latest campaign ad opens with soaring music and scenes of construction workers in pre-dawn light. It closes with a slightly less upbeat and all too familiar refrain: an image of the U.S. Capitol and a message that...
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Photograph by Bill Clark/Roll Call/Getty Images
Rep. Heather Wilson
Crossroads Divides Time, Money Between White House and Senate
Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, which discloses its donors, and Crossroads GPS, which keeps them hidden, were among the biggest spenders in the 2010 congressional races, pumping $22 million into efforts to elect Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics....
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Photograph by Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo
Election clerk Michael Daniels takes a vote by mail ballot at a drive up ballot collection point outside the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters office on June 5, 2012.
California’s Open Primary Costs Super-PAC $711,000 on Just One Race
California’s races are costing the independent expenditure groups a lot more, thanks to the new open primaries. House Majority PAC — a super-PAC set up to help Democrats win back the House — will show in its next FEC filing...
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Photograph by Robert Caplin/Bloomberg
Shoppers with a Hollister Co. shopping bag in New York.
Magic Number of the Day: -37.6
That’s the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index (CCI) for the week ended June 3. The index, which asks people to rate the national economy, their personal finances and the buying climate, rose for the third straight week, a break from the losing...
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Photograph by FilmMagic/Getty Images
Hosts Kristen Bell and Toby Keith during the 2012 CMT Music awards on June 6, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Obama, Romney Pick Toby, Kristen
There is, it appears, one matter on which President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney agree: Toby Keith and Kristen Bell. The president and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party to replace him in November engaged in a video production...
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Contributors
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Al Hunt
is a columnist for Bloomberg View and host of the weekly show "Political Capital with Al Hunt" on Bloomberg TV. -
Mark Silva
is deputy managing editor for government news in Washington and editor of Political Capital. He has covered the White House and national politics. -
Emma Fidel
is political editor for Bloomberg.com in Washington. She previously covered financial regulation as a Bloomberg intern. -
Don Frederick
edits political and government coverage for Bloomberg News. He previously worked for more than a decade at the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau. -
Gregory Giroux
analyzes elections, financing of congressional and presidential elections, political advertising and demographics in Bloomberg's Washington Bureau. -
Julie Bykowicz
covers the influence of money and lobbying in Washington, and covered the state legislature and city crime for the Baltimore Sun for 10 years. -
Jonathan Salant
covers campaign finance and lobbying in Washington. He was president of the National Press Club and started in Washington in 1987. -
Richard Rubin
covers federal tax policy. He worked at Congressional Quarterly and The Charlotte Observer before joining Bloomberg News in 2010. -
Julie Hirschfeld Davis
is a senior political reporter for the Washington Bureau. She covered the 2012 campaign for Bloomberg News and previously covered the White House for the Baltimore Sun. -
Lisa Lerer
covers the White House and covered the 2012 campaign for Bloomberg News. She covered Congress, lobbying and the 2008 campaign for Politico. -
John McCormick
is a national political reporter looking forward to the 2016 presidential campaign, which will be the fifth he's covered. He's also reported for The Des Moines Register and Chicago Tribune. -
Julianna Goldman
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television. -
Hans Nichols
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television. -
Margaret Talev
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and covered the White House for McClatchy Newspapers. She has covered California and Florida politics. -
Cary O'Reilly
is Editor at Large at Bloomberg First Word and is Washington Daybook columnist for Bloomberg Government and Bloomberg News.
