Y2K-US-GOVERNMENT - Congressman Pete Sessions on Y2K
From C.S.Y2K, thanks to Kevin
'Pete Sessions' Comments on the US Gov' 19 Dec 1998
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Today, I attended the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas) Prep 2000
luncheon. While it wasn't free, not an all-you-can-eat affair, I
thought it was worth attending since Congressman Pete Sessions, Vice Chairman of The House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology was the speaker.
house.gov
The usual handout of the federal agencies and their status by phase
was shown (completion dates of 1999 thru 2019) but he reinforced the footnote: Warning: projections may be overly optimistic. The
subcommittee is only a reporting committee and is trying to negotiate
in good faith with the government agencies. The only authority they
have is to withhold funding. They are not an investigative agency.
The right answer is to get the full backing of the president.
In 1Q97 the agencies claimed they needed 2.3 billion (US dollars) to
solve the problem. In 3Q97 they claimed they needed 3.8 billion but
couldn't explain how they derived at that figure. He believes shortly
they will claim at least 7 billion to resolve the problem. He stated
the government is good at spending money...remember the IRS getting 8 billion to upgrade their system, spending 4 billion before throwing their hands up saying we can't do it?
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He compared the government to a large corporation where the department heads only take orders from the CEO and the CEO is in "denial".
The Department of Energy, NRCC, and the Pentagon haven't realized there is a problem. The lights aren't on and nobody's home. They are on a watch list similar to double secret probation and he believes it will become critical in 1998 (I noticed several dumb looks of confusion from the audience).
Concerning the IRS, he believes the only fix will be a flat tax but
this is a political hot potato nobody wants to touch....Clinton has a
59% approval rating, don't rock the boat. Privatization/outsourcing
is another political hot potato.
Y2K is not a funds issue, it's an educational issue. It's an
unpopular topic and the president won't admit the problem. The
president runs the entire country...he ran his own campaign. The
department heads are puppets and don't do anything. The department heads are political appointees and are waiting for orders. The president is in denial now and has been in the past on several issues until they are on his doorstep.
Congressman Sessions believes a Y2K Czar must be appointed even though some of Clinton's past Czars have failed. Right now Y2K is going nowhere because everyone is waiting for someone else to do something.
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