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Cutting Waste from the Federal Government's $40 Billion Annual Software Bill

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Hey, here’s another idea from government to whip that multitrillion-dollar deficit into shape: Watch the government software licensing process a bit more closely.

As Federal News Radio – “All The Rockin’ Hits All The Time! –  noted recently, an amendment to the 2012 Homeland Security Department's authorization bill “would require the DHS CIO to tighten spending on and better inventory the software licenses the department purchases.”

The bill is the brainchild of Rep. Joe Walsh (News - Alert) (R-Ill.), and it has been approved by the House Homeland Security Committee, which is “still in the process of marking up the full bill,” FNR reports.

"There are so many places to cut and save money when you really sort of go down below the service," Walsh said, noting that the government spends about $40 billion a year on software, about 30 percent of which Walsh calls “waste.”

Well, you know, $16 billion, that’s real money right there.

The sort of software asset management Walsh wants to see happen is "where they really get a handle on their software needs and they make more efficient and timely purchases," he said. In other words, something the private sector has been doing for years. But if you’re in the private sector you have to know what you’re doing, mostly because when it’s your own money you’re spending, you tend to care.

Trying to speak diplomatically yet candidly about the Obama Administration’s so-called “cost-cutting” measures, Walsh offered that "I think they've made some gentle progress in the area of improper payments. I think, in general, in the whole waste, fraud and abuse arena, they've given nothing but lip service to this. They're not alone in this. Virtually every administration that's come in — Republican and Democrat — and truly most of the Congresses as well. This is such an easy thing to tout ... but at the end of the day it's never really done."

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