Government Executive :Vol.36, No.9 (6/1/04) -- www.GovernmentExecutive.com

Government Executive Vol.36, No.9

Government Executive June 1, 2004

Taming the IRS Chief Information Officer Todd Grams intends to conquer IRS modernization, not become its latest victim.
By Shane Harris
Looking for Trouble Agriculture officials say they want to know how prevalent mad cow disease really is. Not everyone is sure they're serious.
By Katherine McIntire Peters
Fear of Failure Why are so few schools keeping up with No Child Left Behind?
By Denise Kersten
Fewer Hands on Deck The Navy's top admiral plans to increase the fleet's firepower by cutting the crew.
By George Cahlink

Desert Storm The very nature of the Coalition Provisional Authority is in question. By Shane Harris
Duty, Honor, Country The Army's investigation into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners reveals a stunning failure of leadership. By Katherine McIntire Peters
Reining In Contractors The prison scandal in Iraq raises questions about contractor oversight. By Jason Peckenpaugh and Shane Harris
Earth to Managers Get ready for big changes at NASA, or get ready to move on. By Beth Dickey
Privacy Perceptions Is opinion nine-tenths of reality? By Shane Harris
Weapons Watchdog Thomas Christie walks a fine line between sharp questions and playing nice. By George Cahlink
Push-Button Travel Paper-free trips are upon us. By Caroline Polk

Piecemeal Watch List Managing Technology: Slow progress hinders the terrorist database. By Karen D. Schwartz
Without a Net Management Matters: A promotion is not always a reward. By Brian Friel
A Bridge to Service Viewpoint: It's up to civil servants to tell young people about the great opportunity to change lives and the nation. By Sandra Day O'Connor
In a Pig's Eye Political World: Congress takes care of its own with homeland security pork, even where danger is remote. By Charles Mahtesian

Editor's notebook Self-inflicted wounds are leading to the decline of the public sector.
The Buzz Keeping secrets, building nations, hunting bargains and paying it back.
Outlook More talk and less action is making government the perfect place to shirk executive responsibility.

This is about the 1000th article I've read on this subject and a couple of points need to be made. 1) The computers in use at the IRS are state-of-the-art. The applications are operated in a manner consistent with the 1960s. 2) Assembler language is not archaic, it is not a commonly used language. Schools haven' taught assembler for 30 years. They taught COBOL, then C, the Java etc. The IRS taught all its personnel in house, and for 30 years IT has delivered one successful filing season after another. 3) If Mr. Grams is the financial whizz he's made out to be the question is why would an enterprise re-write 10's of millions of lines of code. The applications merely need to be changed to operate in a more modern manner, mainly they need to update the Masterfile daily instead of weekly. This change would cost the taxpayers a fraction of what has already been spent on "modernization". The myth that the Masterfile will break is laughable. GovExec.com reader Posted June 11, 2004 10:45 PM