Why US government IT fails so hard, so often

“Over 50 percent of the federal workforce is over 48 years old—and nearly a quarter is within five years of retirement age. And the move to reliance on contractors for much of IT has drained the government of a younger generation of internal IT talent that might have a fresher eye toward what works in IT. But even the most fresh and creative minds might go numb at the scale, scope, and structure forced on government IT projects by the way the government buys and builds things in accordance with ‘the FAR’—Federal Acquisition Regulations. If it isn’t a ‘program of record,’ government culture dictates, it seems it’s not worth doing.”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/why-us-government-it-fails-so-hard-so-often/