https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/news/366623328/DOGE-divides-policymakers-on-federal-IT-modernization
The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency's approach to improving government efficiency and modernizing federal IT has created a divide in Congress. While overhauling legacy IT systems is a bipartisan goal, Democrats disagree with DOGE's methods.
After President Donald Trump created DOGE upon taking office in January, the group began cutting staff at agencies across the federal government, eliminating federal contracts, assessing data access and reviewing opportunities to incorporate new technologies into government processes.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, said during a hearing Tuesday that the Trump administration and DOGE have prioritized modernizing government technology, identifying "federal IT as the backbone for all government programs, operations and spending."
However, cuts and layoffs at agencies including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security will stunt the progress of federal IT modernization, argued Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), ranking member of the subcommittee. Her concerns were echoed by Erie Meyer, former chief technologist at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Meyer resigned from her role in February and spoke as a witness during the hearing.
"DOGE is burning down the house and calling it a renovation," she said. "This path is making government less efficient, less secure and less capable of protecting the people it's supposed to serve."
DOGE, which is not an official government agency but an initiative created by Trump, is centralizing access to the "most sensitive data the government holds" without proper oversight, Meyer testified. She said she also questioned the agency's vetting of AI tools staffers are using to analyze that data.
"When DOGE arrived at my agency, they didn't modernize anything," she said. "Instead, they broke the consumer complaint system that the CFPB runs per Congressional mandate. As a result, at least 75 families facing imminent foreclosure of their homes were left in limbo. Service members could no longer submit banking statements to report being illegally overcharged in interest."
Brown shared Meyer's concerns, noting that DOGE's efforts "may undermine the integrity of federal IT modernization, particularly regarding the protection of sensitive data and the layoffs of critical IT and cybersecurity experts."
The most effective way to modernize IT in the federal government is to fund programs like the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), as well as upskill and hire technical staff within the government, Meyer said.
TMF was established in 2018, during Trump's first administration, to financially assist federal agencies with modernizing their IT systems.
Mace said the TMF can be used to improve, retire or replace legacy federal IT systems, calling it a "necessary piece of the IT modernization puzzle." Mace recently reintroduced the Modernizing Government Technology Reform Act to reauthorize the TMF. Without the TMF, some modernization projects would be too difficult to get started, she said.
Mace said the federal government spends more than $100 billion annually on IT systems, with nearly 80% of that spending on operating and maintaining legacy systems.
"Federal IT systems enable everything the government does," Mace said. "When these systems are outdated, obsolete and unreliable, the government cannot carry out these duties responsibly or efficiently."
Technologies available today, like generative AI, can be used to create code, find anomalies in cyberactivity and identify fraudulent activities in U.S. benefits systems, said hearing witness Margaret Graves, senior fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government and former U.S. deputy federal CIO.
The federal government needs to continue funding the TMF so agencies can take advantage of those new technologies, she said.
"The opportunity is there, progress is real and TMF is one tool that will address barriers and help us move forward," Graves said.
Makenzie Holland is a senior news writer covering big tech and federal regulation. Prior to joining Informa TechTarget, she was a general assignment reporter for the Wilmington StarNews and a crime and education reporter at the Wabash Plain Dealer.
30 Apr 2025