“With the government still using floppy disks and checking for Y2K compliance, the private sector’s creativity will help move the Trump administration past the turn of the century, presidential advisor Jared Kushner said Monday,” Anita Balakrishnan reports for CNBC. “Major technology executives met with Kushner to gather ideas for modernizing the government.”
“Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, helps lead the White House Office of American Innovation, which he said aims to bring “business sensibility” to the government,” Balakrishnan reports. “‘We will unleash the creativity of the private sector to provide citizen services in a way that has never happened before,’Kushner said.”
“Kushner said his efforts are not being stymied by bureaucracy. He added that he is working with employees on eliminating outdated, unsustainable policies and systems that are as much as 56 years old and have held back departments like the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department. ‘By modernizing these systems we will meaningfully improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans,’ Kushner said,” Balakrishnan reports. “The government and Silicon Valley aim to work together despite the fact that technology leaders like Apple’s Tim Cook and Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt, for instance, have positioned themselves squarely against the administration on several issues.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Floppies and Y2K compliance. Sheesh.
Chris Liddell, director of strategic initiatives for the Trump administration, told CNBC that the government has more than 6,000 data centers and spends $86 billion a year on technology, figures that are “orders of magnitude” higher than the private-market equivalents.
The waste is simply appalling. Where is that $86 billion annually going, exactly? And, most importantly, to what lengths will those receiving those billions go in order to keep the appalling spigot flowing?
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. — Ronald Reagan
SEE ALSO:
President Trump to meet with Apple CEO Cook, other tech execs on cutting government waste, improving services – June 19, 2017
Apple CEO Cook, other tech CEOs to attend President Trump’s Jared Kushner-led summit – June 9, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook pressured to follow Elon Musk and leave President’s Council over Paris Agreement kerfuffle – June 2, 2017
Apple CEO Cook slams President Trump’s decision to withdraw from climate deal; says it’s ‘wrong for our planet’ – June 1, 2017
Despite pleas from Apple CEO Tim Cook and others, President Trump pulls out of Paris Agreement – June 1, 2017
Apple signs on to full page ‘open letter’ ad urging President Trump to keep U.S. in Paris Agreement on climate change – June 1, 2017
Apple CEO Cook calls President Trump as Elon Musk threatens to quit White House advisory councils over Paris decision – May 31, 2017
President Trump leaning toward exiting Paris climate change agreement despite Apple, others urging U.S. to remain in deal – May 31, 2017
Apple to stick with environmental pledges despite President Trump’s gutting of Obama’s climate change orders – March 30, 2017
So is Trump behind the times? Does he really think floppy disks and Y2K are still relevant? Since he chose Mike “Zap The Gay Away” Pence as Vice President, I wouldn’t be surprised at how outdated his opinions are.
Funny…but I think you should blame the leadership of the past 20 years. How is this Trump’s fault?
CPW, OBVIOUSLY you did not read that. It isn’t that Trump installed those computers in government agencies! They have b-e-e-n there. It is his administration / SIL that is bringing this up.
You’d be surprised how old some government systems are and the prices they pay to keep them operating. ICBM bunkers until recently still used floppies. Then there are the infrastructure upgrades that spend millions only to creat a mess. We could only hope Apple is allowed to come in and fix a lot of our information systems.
However some of the old stuff can’t be hacked.
Indeed. The last thing we want is launch consoles linked to the web.
son, you ain’t right in the head.
Oh Christopher, I see that you still have an acute case of ABS (adult baby syndrome): you simply can’t accept that Trump won and Hillary lost, so you will apparently cry until the end of time.
Floppy disks are still used to report some eco metric data and in missile silos.
Trump is CANCELLING the fairly numerous government programs that are still in place planning for and implementing preparations for the Y2K problem, 17 years after Y2K came and went and the problem was handled.
It has been said that the closest thing to immorality is a temporary government program or tax. . . this is just one example. Trump, with business experience in cutting costs, is eliminating this obvious waste.
It’s too bad Trump is alienating the tech sector. I’ll be they’d have loved to help out.
Trump is being loyal to the American worker, that’s who elected him…not the globalist crap that want to replace Americans with H1-B aliens.
wake the f up.
Botty? I want you to have my baby. Know what I mean, big guy? (wink wink)
Oh, you can bet there are plenty in the tech sector that will jump at the chance to work for the feds. They have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes and no consideration for the consequences of their actions.
Think the Krupp family in 1930’s Germany.
Look at all the mischief the State has gotten into with the tech they have now. Do we really want them utilizing the latest and greatest to intrude even further into our lives?
From all that’s happened over the past few decades, you’d think no one ever heard of the fundamental principal of the Constitution… it’s whole purpose.
Limited government.
There is a reason things are the way they are. Simple declarations and solutions is a false promise.
It will take time, and some systems, whole systems need to be retired instead of updated.
With that said, what’s not particularly working or what is broken? Point it out, then fix it or replace it.
Amature time.
The government didn’t just stop using paper one day, they won’t upgrade systems any faster than that.
Hopefully not with WindBlows.
We could improve government with a do over of the 2016 election cycle- Congress and White House, and no- I do not mean Hillary, either.
The creativeness of the private sector is probably not the way to “fix” a monolithic bureaucracy.
Let’s be honest: private industry has more than their share of the blame for high costs and the use of outdated tech. What’s the incentive to “cure” a broken system when the government is more than willing to keep paying to keep fixing it? Both sides are guilty of short-term thinking and bleeding the public coffers dry.
NASA may have taken us to the moon, but private contractors (Grumman, Rockwell, Boeing, Douglas, Boeing, IBM, among others) took away billions in profits. Billions have been wasted trying to upgrade Air Traffic Control to be able to use the same GPS system in every cell phone. Where do you think those billions went? Here’s a hint: Not to Air Traffic Controllers, and not to a giant slush fund at the FAA.
When it comes to government, the “creativity of private industry” has mostly involved how to keep sucking off the Federal tit as long and as hard as possible. It’s government’s fault for letting folks get away with it, and the revolving door between customers, regulators and the private sector only incentivizes the problems, and does nothing to solve it.,
“…private industry has more than their share of the blame for high costs and the use of outdated tech…”
except, if a private company does not adapt, it goes out of business…while the government just prints more money and hires more nincompoops….after, appointing a commission to make an investigation to report inconclusive results to the appropriate agency which proffers a proper recommendation, of course.
…and then and ONLY then, it goes to a committee.
True, but really big issue (perhaps the biggest, if it’s as widespread as I think) are budget rules that require an agency to spend all of its budget or lose what it doesn’t spend the next time budgets funded. This has led to egregious unnecessary spending.
If this also doesn’t occur at the federal level, I’ll be surprised. Something I do know that happens at the federal level after an administration change is the total abandonment of projects (with physical infrastructure) that may have been funded for nearly a decade. Not wrapped up, finished, or brought to any conclusion… just left to literally rust/rot away.
Part of the blame for the outdated IT infrastructure rests with congress. The whole budgeting process for federal agencies makes acquiring new equipment very difficult. And congress has had a tendency to micromanage systems development, and let political ideology take precedence over technical expertise.
But the apparent expertise involved WindBlows weenies, who have always been self-serving about making sure tech serves their employment needs.
Leave it to Trump to try to bribe US technology companies by pretending to send money their way. Is there nothing this fraud and hypocrite won’t say to make him seem like he gives a crap about anything but himself?
And most of the blame goes to Microsoft IT doofuses but big gub’mnt is scared to admit that.
Where is the money coming from to upgrade? A few years ago the IRS tried updating their systems to be more efficient and the republican noise machine had a cow: “No, we can’t give them enough money to do their job, because then they might catch our cheating.” And the same thing with every other government program.
This outrageous public servant bashing has to stop. They don’t make policy. They don’t make laws and they don’t create bloated infrastructure. They work within the constraints of whomever is in charge at any one time including petty, party point-scoring meddling, constantly reduced budgets, increased workloads and staff reductions, government appointed managers_without_a_clue_or_experience, 180 deg about-face decisions by congressional caucus interference and successive government inability to face up to the real cost of sensible lasting improvement – all the while having to keep the antiquated systems fully functional. That would be a $Trillions spend.
But no…”We’re going to build a big beautiful wall” instead.
#kakistocracy
You know it might stop, if they were truly serving the public …
boom.
That might make sense if most public “servants” weren’t in it for the same reasons their elected counterparts are.
Getting all they can out of the system. Ridiculous retirements, benefits, etc., etc.
If I had my way there would be no such thing as government pensions, benefits, etc. No one would work for the State long enough to collect them.
YEBBIT….. what about Y10K? gotta start planning on *THAT* one!
/sarc