I’ve written about the problems with government statistics running for a while, especially since DOGE started looking for the location of the bodies. I meant to say “bodies were buried,” but that’s incorrect. The president’s data processing carcasses are not interred. They’re scheming, shambling zombies frantically searching for neurons in the hallways.
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As these outrageous money squanders are discovered, people and their aforementioned boys, brothers-in-law, and socially connected individuals outside the state have been screaming, as do we ordinary old citizens who are asking,” God oh God, how did we get in this chaos”?
But on Laura Ingraham’s show on March 20, Sam Corcos, CEO of Levels, a wellness company, and Scott Bessent, secretary of the Treasury, spoke about data running at the IRS in particular.  ,
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The IRS has come up before, such as when Musk and the Expand kids discovered there were people who were almost 400 years old and still had accounts in the Social Security documents, which are closely related to IRS data ever since the IRS declared that the phrase” not to be used for id” on the Social Security Card was no longer effective.
Corcos was hired by the Treasury to examine the IRS’s modernization program and its operating and maintenance budget. Maintenance and operations are the expenses that are associated with just keeping the existing system running, while the modernization program is a new development.
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Have a look at Corcos ‘ website to see if he is a successful startup. So he does possess some expertise in software development. He began to investigate the IRS systems.
If you mean “enraging” and “obscene,” it was interesting. Since 1990, the IRS has been running this modernization program, which started in 1986 and was ultimately declared a failure in 1997. The Customer Account Data Engine ( CADE ), which was launched in 2001 and ended as a failure in 2009 after carrying out about 15 % of its intended function, was another example.
As I’ve already mentioned, the current system is written in COBOL and Assembler, which are directly equivalent to machine instructions, and is based on IBM mainframes.
According to Corcos, the current modernization program is currently 30 years behind schedule and$ 15 billion over budget. It has been in development for 35 years, and it is currently “five years away” from being finished. And has been since 1996.
The hangup is “entrenched interests” like consultants and contractors, according to Secretary Bessent. The IRS’s$ 3.5 billion budget is largely devoted to outsiders. According to Bessent,” That’s not efficiency — that’s a racket.”
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Corcos claims that turning this around is top of the list. The IRS” spends a lot more on a program like this than any private company would.” We’ve cut about$ 1.5 billion from the budget for modernization. It’s all about avoiding unnecessary fat and asking difficult questions.
It’s simple to blame the government developers, but Corcos claims that the developers are excellent and that management is at fault. You see contracts worth$ 10 million,$ 20 million, and$ 50 million, and you ask,” Why are we doing this?” Everyone grunts, and you can cancel it and nothing breaks. Inertia is just running the show; it just needs to start asking questions.
