When firing isn’t a fix: Why government needs more tech experts

Imagine for a moment that all two million of our federal employees came to work each day and tried to tackle their jobs using an IBM Selectric typewriter instead of a computer. They’d send messages by snail mail, there would be no document backup, and access to the breadth of information online would be nonexistent. Bottom line: extremely inefficient.

Now take a moment to think about how many of those two million employees the federal government would have to fire to make their work more efficient.

It’s an exercise with no right answer — there is no number of layoffs that can fix the inefficiencies of a typewriter. And while it’s a fictional scenario, there are similar lessons we can take away as Elon Musk and the Trump administration look to increase efficiency in the federal government.

While typewriters might be a thing of the past, there is an enormous amount of work to be done giving federal employees the tools they need to work efficiently, and bringing in the tech talent necessary to make good decisions on how to update those tools.

From processing tax returns to delivering veterans’ benefits, the efficiency of federal agencies increasingly hinges on technology. High-profile incidents like the early HealthCare.gov debacle — which cost nearly $840 million due to poor planning and oversight — underscore the price of not having enough in-house digital savvy. But there are also day-to-day inefficiencies — several federal agencies are still using mainframes installed during the Nixon administration — that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

To build a more efficient government, we need a plan to expand and retain tech talent in the federal workforce that can help address these inefficiencies.

Over the past decade, there’s been progress bringing tech expertise onboard at federal agencies — and we’ve seen results. In 2020, the Census Bureau launched its first online census portal, improving user experience and saving the government an estimated $1.9 billion. Agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have migrated systems to the cloud, saving tens of millions of dollars annually in IT costs.

Then there’s the U.S. Digital Service, an agency created specifically to help the federal government use design and technology to increase efficiency and deliver better services. Since its creation in 2014, USDS has helped the Social Security Administration modernize its website and services, saving an estimated $285 million. USDS also developed new digital tools for casework at the Department of Veterans Affairs, projected to save 17 years’ worth of staff time annually.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t cuts to be made in the federal budget that would increase government efficiency. In a $6.75 trillion federal budget, there are savings to be found.

But paired with an eye for wasteful spending, there needs to be a willingness to increase our investment in programs that help the federal government function more efficiently. Tech workers are easy to lose in D.C. There’s plenty of competition for their talent in the private sector. But it takes a concerted government effort to attract, grow, and preserve tech talent in the federal workforce.

This week, ARI led a letter to the Trump administration co-signed by over 20 tech founders and entrepreneurs in the startup community, urging the administration to help founders, engineers, and other key personnel bring valuable skills and perspectives that could greatly benefit government operations.

Bringing their expertise onboard to help increase government efficiency will mean expedited federal hiring, not just expedited layoffs.

The efficiencies achieved by modernizing federal systems and processes are not hypothetical; they are happening today in some areas of government, led by people with the right expertise. 

The challenge now is to spread and scale those successes. That means doubling down on recruiting, retaining, and empowering tech talent in government. The return on this investment is a federal enterprise that is faster, smarter, and more responsive to the people it serves — a government built to deliver in the digital age.

Brad Carson is president of Americans for Responsible Innovation. Carson is a former congressman representing Oklahoma’s 2nd District and served as acting undersecretary of Defense. Carson is the 21st president of the University of Tulsa.