I know Code for America operates on the local level, but I wonder if there's anything to be gained by the federal government turning to CfA for an existing group of self-identified coders interested in assisting on government problems.
Have you seen the Presidential Innovation Fellows (http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows) program? We're a group (about 60 alumns so far) focused on doing CfA-esq projects within the Federal government. Jen Pahlka just finished up spending a year with the program helping scale it up and do even more awesome things. Ping me if you're interested.