Video: 2011?s best triumphs and failures of government

>> comes to lawmakers, what were the past year's biggest triumphs and failures from the government? i'm joined by ed o'keefe from "the washington post " and the author of the federal eye blog and here to give us their take on what the government got right and the biggest oops of 2011 so far. let's talk about the good list. what did they do right?

>> topping the list is disaster response . fema had a banner year. you talk to democrats and know ares and lawmakers from all over who dealt with the disasters, 11 topped $1 billion. fema did a fantastic job responding ahead of the storm and providing a disaster relief as quickly as possible to the victims. if you think back a few years to how it performed after hurricane katrina , to say that fema has bipartisan praise.

>> government waste?

>> that was another big issue on improper payments and people who had medicare and medicate and took tax credits and the irs hasn't stopped them, it's a shrinking problem to its credit. the obama administration has been doing a lot to find this wasteful spending and cut down on it. it's a test of reporters and other who is keep tabs to make sure the numbers drop in the new year. they have done a good amount of cutting or made plans to cut.

>> with some of the other positive things you wrote about is the freedom of information act and they're more efficient when it comes to that.

>> agencies overall are granting freedom of information act requests at a healthier clip than in the past. that is part of a growing trend to cut backlogs of all sorts whether it's veterans waiting for benefits and people trying to get social security payments and backlogs through the better use of technology. they are being cut. that's definitely a good thing.

>> that's the good stuff. a list of four good things. on the oops list, huh something like nine. i will bring up one of them. you are saying that when it comes to the landfill, the issue of troops remains being found in a landfill, that was a big no-no.

>> this was the big issue at the mortuary scandal that happened between 2004 and 2008 . hundreds of remains of service members killed overseas were dumped in a landfill and body parts were misplaced as an awful story and an example of how they dropped the ball, keeping their share of the commitment that the troops make to the country.

>> also you heard response when is it came to the shutdowns. we are talking about the government shutdowns every other month.

>> about every six week and that meant that federal agencies had to be on watch to close down. they were not able to do the actual job. government is supposed to be function skpk several times they almost did it. that is a big oops of 2011 .

>> good and bad stuff for the government. thank you so much.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/45827781/

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