Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright) especially for his leadership on this bill, the MEGABYTE Act. Mr. Speaker, as has been indicated, we spend over $80 billion a year on IT procurement across the Federal Government, 80 percent of which maybe is used to maintain old and legacy systems, some of those systems going back to the 1960s. We are still funding COBOL, DOS, and many multiple systems that aren't integrated and aren't interoperable. {time} 1715 My friend, Mr. Cartwright, gave what I think is one of the most glaring examples of how, even when we move to update, because of the stovepipe nature of decisionmaking all too often in the Federal Government, bad decisions get made. The Pentagon has one system for medical recordkeeping and the Veterans Administration has another. When one individual moves from Active Duty to retired status, they have to take their records with them, physically, because the two systems, upgraded recently, are not compatible. A third procurement contract had to be issued for the private sector to try to see if they could bridge these two systems, and the taxpayer had to pay a third time. Why couldn't we get that right the first time? Making sure these investments serve the purpose for which they are intended is really critical. This act helps codify that. My friend, Mr.…”