On day one of his second term, President Donald Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with a mandate to modernize federal information technology (IT) systems. The effort spotlighted a longstanding problem: government agencies paying too much for inefficient software that wastes taxpayer money and puts our cybersecurity at risk.
To reverse this trend, agencies must look beyond the entrenched incumbents that have long treated government contracts as an invitation to fleece the American people.
DOGE was established after years of high-profile government IT failures. In one particularly egregious case, the Department of Veterans Affairs contracted Cerner for $10 billion to modernize the agency’s health records. Cerner was later acquired by Oracle, a widely used government contractor, which then presided over a worsening disaster.
