Political Quotes

“Mr. President. I rise to join Senators Carper, Lieberman, and Brown in introducing a bill that would bring more management and oversight of major information technology, IT, investments across the federal government. In fiscal year 2011 alone, the federal government plans to spend nearly $80 billion on IT investments, about half of which is for major IT investments. According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly 40 percent of those major IT investments, totaling nearly $20 billion, are at risk for significant cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance problems. Rampant cost and performance problems in IT investments occur across the government. Most recently, we have seen a total breakdown in the National Archives and Records Administration's, NARA, Electronic Records Archive initiative. Since 2001, NARA has tried to develop a system to preserve and provide access to a massive volume of electronic records. Originally slated for a 2012 rollout at a cost of $317 million, NARA has had to repeatedly revise the plan and cost estimate and finally decided to produce a scaled-down system this year. Last month GAO estimated the project would cost between $762 million and $1 billion--three times more than originally planned. We see time and time again with these big IT contracts that requirements are not clear up front, leading to chaos down the road that wastes hundreds of millions of dollars. Such was the case with the 2010 Decennial Census handheld devices.…”