Gov't spends big money on old technology
WASHINGTON — The government is spending about three-fourths of its technology budget maintaining aging computer systems, including platforms more than 50 years old in vital areas from nuclear weapons to Social Security. One still uses floppy disks.
In a report to be released today, nonpartisan congressional investigators say the increasing cost of maintaining museum-ready equipment devours money better spent on modernization.
Despite a White House push to replace aging workhorse systems, the budget for modernization has fallen, and will be $7 billion less in 2017 than in 2010, said the Government Accountability Office. GAO said it found problems across the government, not just in a few agencies. Among those highlighted in the report:
n The Defense Department’s Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to U.S. nuclear forces. The system is running on a 1970s IBM computing platform, and still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data. “Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete,” GAO said.
n Treasury’s individual and business master files, the authoritative data sources for taxpayer information. The systems are about 56 years old, and use an outdated computer language that is difficult to write and maintain.
n Social Security systems that are used to determine eligibility and estimate benefits, about 31 years old. Some use a programming language called COBOL, dating to the late 1950s and early 1960s.
GAO estimates that the government spent at least $80 billion on information technology, or IT, in 2015.
