Do you still use eight-inch floppy disks? What about software coding from the 1960s? No? Well, the United States government does!
Every year, the federal government spends a large chunk of your tax money on updating its outdated technology. Despite these upgrades, Washington still tends to waste billions of dollars per year on outdated systems that result in the waste of your tax dollars.
According to a new report from Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford, the government wastes more than $55 billion on technology that dates back to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Or, if you’re a bit behind on your American history studies, the federal government is throwing your money down the drain with 60-year-old technology.
The second annual “Federal Fumbles” report highlighted one instance where the Department of Defense is still utilizing eight-inch floppy disks in order to manage the nuclear weapons system. The Department of Veterans Affairs uses employee time cards, which were created in the 1950s, to track benefits claims. The Treasury Department has been caught using software developed in the 1960s.
“This is the way the federal government has dropped the ball, and what we are trying to focus in on, is not trying to pick on one particular agency or entity, but to say we have got to be able to pay attention. We are really dealing with four different main areas as we walk through this; grants that need oversight, regulations and regulators that need oversight, agency bureaucracy and inefficiency, and then a lack of coordination between agencies,” Lankford said in a statement.
“We are not just trying to raise the problem; we are also trying to raise how you solve it. Whether it is an administration action, whether it is a piece of legislation, whether it is just coordination between the two, or some of those things that have already happened, but we haven’t engaged in it enough to provide the oversight needed to actually get the coordination. Every single one of these identify here is the problem, here is the issue, and here is how to solve it.
“This is not a comprehensive book; this is not trying to list everything in the federal government where there is an issue. We are trying to find some key areas that we can identify, and say here are some problems we have seen, and some things that we find as common ground solutions. This builds on last year’s book.
“We have got duplication issues. We have got problems that are around federal foreign aid, which has been an ongoing issue that we have made recommendations on. When we deal with foreign aid, we should simply deal with foreign aid that is to the benefit of the United States. We don’t think that is an unreasonable request. Instead, at times, we deal with foreign aid, like studying fish bones in Tanzania.”
Outgoing President Barack Obama had attempted to remedy the matter by establishing a brand new department that is actually meant to collaborate with other departments and agencies in order to transition into new and more effective digital systems. Of course, like any other bureaucracy, the department has just wasted money and has yet to deliver on its pledge to create savings.
Simply solution – cut our losses and simply shut down the entire federal government. 95%+ is unconstitutional anyway, the states can do a better and more accountable job anyway, and DC is simply a tool for the crony-capitalists to oppress us at a national level. We would all be safer, richer, and far more free without DC.
I believe it. They’re so behind the times, they weren’t able to steal the election.
In EVERY SINGLE CASE when Governments update their old reliable systems with fancy new ones, cost INCREASE by at least 1000%. I prefer an 8″ floppy from the 60’s to any “new” system out there. You want viruses in your nuclear bunker? In your fancy new hardware?