Assessing the eGov legacy: Reader feedback

In response to a column about Bush's IT legacy, a reader argues that the eGov initiatives were not a great success.

Are you kidding? Take a look at OMB's own figures and you will see that eGov saved $400M last year. But establishing eGov offices in all of the federal agencies and the constant barrage of data calls have cost much more than was saved. Despite millions spent on Enterprise Architecture, few if any duplications have been reduced. The only attempt at sharing and collaboration, CORE.Gov, was a complete failure and has pretty much been shut down. The government needs collaboration and reuse but OMB and e-Gov have focused on metrics about work rather than actual work and as a result have accomplished nothing of note. What's more, the manual data call method that OMB uses to gather its information ensures that what they gather is both slow and inaccurate. It is incredible in this day and age to learn that despite all of the technical tools in the world today, OMB is still largely manually driven. All of the information they gather is put into spreadsheets because they lack the basics for effectively aggregating data: a database and the vision to use one. The largest organization in the world and it completely lacks an automated Management Information System? Incredible but true. The legacy that the Bush Administration has left this administration is that their work is cut out for them.

To read the story ("Bush's legacy is Obama's uncertain mandate") and post your own comment, click here.