CrossGov's Overlooked Federal Numbers: $13.5 Million Saved on $1 Billion, a 14% Sustain Rate and a 60-Year-Old System Still Running
Every big government story has a headline number, and then it has the number that matters. They’re rarely the same. The headline says a fund got $1 billion. The number that matters is how much it gave back.
That second number is what CrossGov.com is good at finding. It covers US government, mostly federal, and it reads GAO reports, CBO tables and agency filings for the figure the press release left out. I went through its archive looking for the ones that stuck with me. Here they are.
Money spent, money returned
$13.5 million. That’s how much the Technology Modernization Fund has actually saved, by GAO’s count, on roughly $1 billion in awards. The fund was sold as a revolving account that would pay itself back. It now faces the December 11 funding cliff with that ratio on the record.
$754 million a year keeps 11 legacy federal IT systems alive. The oldest is 60 years old. That’s what modernisation budgets look like from the other end.
$774 billion is what GAO says Washington has saved since 2011 by acting on its duplication and overlap reports. That’s the good news. Another $100 billion is still on the table, unclaimed.
The numbers that undercut a policy
14%. That’s the share of bid protests GAO sustains, and protests are at a decade low. The Pentagon and GSA want a “loser pays” rule anyway, to cut down on frivolous protests. With numbers like these, it’s hard to see where the frivolous ones are hiding.
38. The number of programs on GAO’s High-Risk List. Ten got better. Three got worse. The other 25 just sit there, year after year, which might be the most honest statistic in Washington.
$440 million. That’s what’s left of the Medicare MFN drug-pricing model’s savings, down from $11.9 billion. A 96% haircut, quietly, while the first negotiated Part B prices come due November 30.
The numbers that need a comparison
Some figures only mean something next to another country’s. CrossGov does this a lot, and it’s the habit I’d steal first.
25.6% vs 34.1%. The US tax take as a share of GDP against the OECD average, which just hit a record. Whatever you think the right level is, the US is a long way from the club average.
3.17%. America’s defence spending as a share of GDP. Meanwhile five NATO allies have already passed 3.5%. That’s a sentence nobody in Washington expected to read five years ago.
About 20. The number of states that issue the mobile driver’s licences that Login.gov now accepts. The federal ID system is ready. Most of the states aren’t, and Apple Wallet isn’t supported yet.
The one I keep coming back to
7 miles a week. That’s the build rate on the $46.5 billion border wall, while apprehensions head for the lowest level since 1967. Fewer crossings and more wall at the same time. Whether that’s cause and effect or just coincidence is exactly the argument the number lets you have.
Pick any post in the CrossGov archive and there’s usually one figure like these buried in it. Find it.