CONGRESSMAN LIEU STATEMENT ON HOUSE GOP REJECTION OF CYBERSECURITY FUNDING
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington - Today, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D | Los Angeles County) issued the following statement regarding the rejection of his House Budget Committee amendment to invest $3 billion in one time mandatory spending to fully fund the startup of President Obama’s Information Technology Modernization Fund.
Outdated legacy systems and underutilization of best practices across the federal government have put some of our nation’s most essential electronic assets at risk. These legacy systems are hard to defend from cyberattacks and expensive to maintain. President Obama’s proposed $3 billion information Technology Modernization Fund will help overcome these two challenges so that the government does not spend 71 percent of its annual $51 billion IT budget on legacy systems.
“I am greatly disappointed that House Republicans continue to put politics ahead of national security. Implementing the President’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan by investing $3 billion to fund upgrade legacy systems, which are both hard to secure and expensive to maintain should be an approach both sides of the aisle can agree on. Instead, Republicans on the Budget Committee rejected my amendment to fund the Information Technology Modernization Fund. We cannot stand idly by and let our national security be endangered by inaction and underfunding.
###