FAA modernization GAO report

[Brandt]

Published today. 
 

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-107001?utm_campaign=usgao_email&utm_content=daybook&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

[N201MKTurbo]

Read the report and have no idea what systems are unsustainable or why. What a bunch of BS. And jibber jabber.

OK, I read the full report and it talks more about the systems. The replacement systems are all behind schedule and over budget. They should put Elon in charge if getting it done. It would be done by the end of the year for a fraction of the cost. And it will work better.

[IvanP]

Gee...a government project that is behind schedule and over budget. No surprises here. 

[Schllc]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Read the report and have no idea what systems are unsustainable or why. What a bunch of BS. And jibber jabber.

OK, I read the full report and it talks more about the systems. The replacement systems are all behind schedule and over budget. They should put Elon in charge if getting it done. It would be done by the end of the year for a fraction of the cost. And it will work better.

My thoughts exactly.  This is nothing but bureaucratic nonsense to make the systems they spent billions on last year sound like the problem. The amount of money this agency wastes on its pet projects and legacy costs is staggering.    
13 billion dollars…

They really need a systemic overhaul from top to bottom. 
Our government doesn’t seem to be accountable anymore. For anything.

If it doesn’t work throw more money at it!

 

Sidebar, when I was in college I interned for my uncle who was an electrical engineer. 
He was the primary engineer for the local airport which does barely have commercial service, but it’s a small class C airport. He did the runway and taxiway lighting for the airport for 35 years. Every year or two it was “upgraded” in some way.  
Really? Or were they just making sure they spent the money they were given?

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2024-03/FAA_FY_2025_Budget_Request_508-v5.pdf
 

Waste fraud and abuse is at least 40% of this bloated beast!

[Hank]

33 minutes ago, Schllc said:

Sidebar, when I was in college I interned for my uncle who was an electrical engineer. 

He was the primary engineer for the local airport which does barely have commercial service, but it’s a small class C airport. He did the runway and taxiway lighting for the airport for 35 years. Every year or two it was “upgraded” in some way.  
Really? Or were they just making sure they spent the money they were given?

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2024-03/FAA_FY_2025_Budget_Request_508-v5.pdf
 

Waste fraud and abuse is at least 40% of this bloated beast!

All government agencies & departments, all large NGOs and all organizations that are funded primarily by government grants have one overarching priority in the last quarter of each fiscal year:  spend all remaining money in the budget, lest next year's budget be reduced by the amount not spent this year.

Spending in the first quarter of each fiscal year is generally in line with expectations, not necessarily the same number as "projections."

[N201MKTurbo]

I promised to not post about politics anymore. This is not politics, it is government.

I have a friend who works for Harris Corp. they were contracted to build the system to take the 2020 census. OMG

They built a system that met all the original requirements using COTS cellphones. They bought all the phones, wrote all the software and were about to be done way ahead of schedule and under budget. 
 

Somebody from the government decided that cell phones were not secure enough and said that they could not use the internet. They made them destroy all the phones they bought. They wouldn’t let them sell them because they had government software on them. Harris said they could wipe them all. The gov said no, they had to be destroyed. So all the software they wrote was worthless. They had to design custom handheld devices that had to be brought back to the office and the data had to be downloaded to a private network. 
 

Im not telling all the details, it is too much to write. In the end they built three different versions of the handheld devices, wrote four complete software packages. In the end it cost 10 times the original contract and was almost not ready for the census. The devices were barely usable.

He said the problem was every week somebody would have a different idea of how it had to be done. There was no single person in charge of the government project and nobody really knew who was running things.

[Schllc]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

He said the problem was every week somebody would have a different idea of how it had to be done. There was no single person in charge of the government project and nobody really knew who was running things.

This is because it is like Milton Friedman said, “the least efficient way to spend money is spending other people’s money on someone else.”

there is no accountability, no after action review, no adjustment for errors and no one is fired.
 

my sister worked for the dept of agriculture and took a promotion to leave to work for the IRS. She reported for work, and it took them almost 8 months for them to assign her someone to report to and provide her a workstation.
she did nothing for that 8 month period. Nothing.  

[Danb]

19 hours ago, Schllc said:

This is because it is like Milton Friedman said, “the least efficient way to spend money is spending other people’s money on someone else.”

there is no accountability, no after action review, no adjustment for errors and no one is fired.
 

my sister worked for the dept of agriculture and took a promotion to leave to work for the IRS. She reported for work, and it took them almost 8 months for them to assign her someone to report to and provide her a workstation.
she did nothing for that 8 month period. Nothing.  

At least your not quoting John Maynard Keynes