On Tuesday, President Donald trump assented to a defense policy bill that has a provision that pushes the federal agencies to have a technology upgrade for their old systems. The technological advancements inclusion was as a result of negotiations that were carried out between the president’s office on American industry and innovation and the members of Congress.
This provision was a significant milestone for congressmen and women from both the Democratic and the Republican Party who, since the era of President Obama, have pushed for it relentlessly. However, there are still hurdles to the push. For instance, members of Congress have to avail funds for the general modernization that has been created by the provision. The US government has also not found out how to replace a host of technological roles in multiple agencies of the federal government.
A former Federal Information chief during the Obama administration said that it would take the concerted efforts of all the departments in the US government to have the law implemented. The modernization of technology has been on top of the list for the American innovation office which is led by a former executive in Microsoft, Chris Liddell and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Since 2015, efforts to pass laws on the federal information technology modernization have gained momentum in both Congress and the Senate.
This was after the Personnel management Office was compromised by cyber-attacks which were in part due to the old systems that have become outdated. Senator Jerry Moran spearheaded the legislative efforts in the Senate Rep. Will pushed the legislative in the floor of the House. The legislation would ask for resources to buy and incorporate the latest technology in federal agencies to replace the older dilapidated technologies.
Federal agencies would be allocated up to $500 million in the two proposals for the individual working capital funds or the global modernization funds. As of today, the federal government has an annual information technology budget of between $80 billion and $90 billion. However, most of these resources are geared towards the maintenance of this old systems. A measure known as the Modernizing Government technology act has been included in the bill that was approved by the White House on Tuesday. The move is set out to push federal agencies to incorporate such technologies as cloud and state-of-the-art database technologies for smooth and efficient operations. The representatives of IT in federal agencies have welcomed the move saying that it would improve service delivery to American citizens.
Dil Bole Oberoi
