How big will Obama's IT budget get?

Right out of the gate, President Barack Obama must tame the economic downturn and find the biggest bang for every buck. Federal IT will be an important component of his plan to turn things around and make government more transparent.

His first federal budget proposal will be sent to Capitol Hill in early February, and plenty of people are sitting at the edge of their chairs wondering what it will look like. That includes the Federal IT community. Obama campaigned on a pledge to go through the federal budget "line by line" to find the redundancies and excesses.

One thing is certain; Obama is the most tech-savvy president ever to move into the White House. And if his campaign is any indication of what he's capable of, it's pretty clear that government technology will be at the front and center of his plan to turn the economy around and make government more efficient. That means he will soon name a Chief Technology Officer to oversee the government's journey to an electronic world.

And the Obama administration will take a hard look at projects that have wasted money and not delivered; such as the IRS modernization project, which costs more than $8 billion and has been going on for a dozen years. It has been passed from contractor to contractor, and still has not been successfully completed.

The federal government spent $73 billion on IT in the last year, and that did not include the so-called "black budget" that funds technology for the intelligence agencies and super-secret projects. Those funds are estimated at $50 billion. There have been plenty of changes but the question still remains: Where's the beef?

Obama has promised change, and it will be hard to achieve it without overhauling the procedures of the past to create an interactive government, not a stove-piped one. For example, he's already hinted that outsourcing, even domestic, will have to meet a tough test to go forward. He wants online electronic health records to make the health care system more cost efficient, but it is a tough one to wrestle to the ground. He also believes the Internet can help create a more transparent government.

There is a very long list of things that must be tackled in the coming months. Here are just a few: Should H-1B visas be expanded to allow more foreign IT workers into the United States for jobs? The private sector wants more H-1B visas, but other people believe the jobs can be done by U.S. citizens.

Will he continue the current Bush administration policy of trying to secure the U.S. border? And will he crack down on illegal immigration? Or will he find a way to help people get jobs and legal status by using IT to swiftly move the process?

Whatever the outcome of Obama's first budget proposal, we are watching carefully to see what will change and how, what stays the same and why, and what new, totally out-of-the box ideas Obama is bringing with him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Got your handheld ready? - Judi