This paper examines the federal government’s historic attempts to reform the purchase of information technology starting in the 1960’s with the Brooks Act for ADPE; looks at the unintended consequences of the 1990’s reforms including the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (FASA) and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996; touches on the effects of the internet and the E-Government Act of 2002; investigates OMB’s early role and later Obama-era initiatives around IT accountability; and, finally, reviews the latest attempt at IT reform: the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). It concludes with an examination of how IT reform has not worked and will likely never work until the government develops an organizational design for information technology that flows from an accepted over-arching strategy.
