There is no doubt the federal government’s budgetary climate is chilly. The national debt is growing at a rapid pace largely because of mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, the latter two programs suffering from high levels of improper payments.
The government’s need for sound financial systems to accurately account for every penny spent is crystal clear. However, in the name of sound financial management, the Office of Management and Budget has frozen approximately 30 financial system modernization projects worth $20 billion, regardless of the success of the projects to date, until it can review each and every one of them.
Call us crazy, but shouldn’t OMB have completed the reviews before those proverbial horses left the budgetary barn? And why halt the programs now, in medias res, just as the government is in dire need of modern financial systems? Isn’t that…ironic?
