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White House Claims Government's Technology Is Outdated

by Terrence O'Brien on January 17, 2010 at 12:40 PM

Political blog The Hill may have called the recent announcement by Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, that the government is saddled with "outdated technology" a "startling admission," but it sounds to us like old news. As of January 2008, the Bureau of Indian Affairs still lacked Internet access, and during the transition from campaign to presidency Obama spokesman Bill Burton described it as, "going from an Xbox to an Atari."

According to Orszag, that outdated technology is a big reason why the government is often inefficient and ineffective. His statement was part of the kickoff for a summit between President Obama, his administration, and CEOs of several major technology companies. The goal of the summit is to develop a plan to shore up the existing technology gap that results in billions of wasted taxpayer dollars.

Of course, by the time any resulting initiatives manage to navigate the Washington bureaucracy, the new technology being implemented will already be obsolete. [From: The Hill]

Tags: Barack Obama, BarackObama, government, obama, politics, top, white house, WhiteHouse

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