Do you know where your tax money is going?
No? Well, neither does Congress. At least when it comes to the nation's IT spending.
Seems there's supposed to be a comprehensive report presented every year on how the various IT projects--system upgrades, application development, infrastructure installs, and the like--are going. In the last fourteen years, three of those reports have been produced.
Three out of fourteen.
And things move merrily along like there's nothing wrong.
We're talking about upwards of $25 billion worth of our money here... and no one knows exactly what it's being used for or how effectively it's being used.
One of the worst offenders? The Department of Homeland Security. But we've known all along that their technological know-how is a bit stunted. After all, it took them three years to appoint an actual head of Cyber-Security.
And then people wonder why there are conspiracy theories about black projects siphoning off money for funding.
GAO: Billions Wasted on Federal IT Projects
More than 400 U.S. government agency IT projects—worth an estimated $25 billion—are suffering from poor planning and are underperforming, the GAO says in a report. Sen. Tom Carper claims even projects that are performing well are repeatedly rebaselining to cover cost overruns.
Keep in mind this is just one particular area of the budget. It just gets scarier if you go into other areas.
The mind boggles at how we can continue to let this go on.
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