Book excerpt: "On March 4, 2009, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum focusing on government contracting. In this memorandum, the President challenged the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop a single definition for the term "inherently governmental functions" that would apply to all agencies and provide guidance to agencies in order for them to identify critical functions and positions that should be retained by federal employees. In adherence to the President's memorandum, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) drafted a proposed policy letter that attempts to provide clarity to the agencies by defining inherently governmental functions and guidance as to how to determine which functions can be outsourced to contractors. This paper will provide an analysis of the proposed policy letter and will outline several challenges the government is currently facing by failing to classify certain functions as inherently governmental. This paper also recommends that OFPP create a list that captures all the functions that should not be outsourced to contractors in order to provide consistency amongst agencies and accountability for governmental decisions"--Page iii.