While the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted government’s difficulties in procuring adequate ventilators, masks and testing kits, it also has exposed a glaring weakness in the nation’s computer infrastructure.
In a country where “good government” is too often considered an oxymoron, we are being reminded of the importance in investing in systems that are prepared for an emergency. Instead, decades of disinvestment have contributed to difficulties in people receiving unemployment benefits and delays in one-time stimulus checks approved by the federal government.
In Washington, that has manifested in delays — or inaccessibility — on the state Employment Security Department website. To an extent, that is understandable, given a historic surge of people seeking unemployment benefits following an unprecedented shutdown of the economy. “This is a staggering number for our system,” department commissioner Suzi LeVine said. “The authentication has limited capacity.”
In other states, the situation is more severe. As columnist Christine Rampell of The Washington Post writes: “Archaic, minimally functional computer systems are holding back the rescue effort. …Through a combination of benign neglect and anti-government malice, the technology used by state and federal agencies has been left to rot.”
About two-thirds of state computer systems use COBOL, a programming language that predates the internet. Some states have even put out a call for now-retired programmers fluent in COBOL because current programmers are not equipped to update programs.
COBOL not only is used to run many state computer systems; about half of U.S. banking systems also use the language. That is not exactly reassuring for a society that relies on computers for nearly every facet of daily life. An inability to receive unemployment benefits is problematic, but imagine if suddenly you could not access an ATM or make payments with a debit card.
According to technology website TheVerge.com: “Some COBOL systems were written in ways that make it difficult for fresh faces to update and edit them. When COBOL first came into fashion in the ’50s, computer science wasn’t regularly taught in academia. Because of this, coders worked and solved problems alone without much formal guidance. COBOL programmers learned their skills on the job and didn’t document much of their process for newcomers.”
The situation reflects a long-term unwillingness by politicians and the public to invest in adequate government. When public services work well, the mantra is that there is no reason for further investment. When it fails, the rallying cry is that government is inefficient and incompetent, with nary a mention that a lack of investment may have caused the failure.
As John Koskinen, a recent commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, explained to The Washington Post: “The IRS runs a successful filing season each year, so people ask, ‘Why spend more money on IT?’ They don’t see the risk, or understand the risk.” The 52-year-old computer system used by the IRS is among the oldest in the federal government.
When it comes to setting budgets, public infrastructure is neither glamorous nor eye-catching. The nation has long neglected roads and bridges; it’s even more difficult to generate enthusiasm for government computer systems, which are costly and do not provide readily seeable benefits. But as we are learning through the coronavirus pandemic, failing to invest is even more costly.
