Modern WisdomInside DOGE, The IRS & How to Scam the US Government - Sam Corcos
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:13
Why Sam Joined Treasury to Tackle IRS Modernization
Sam explains how he was recruited to help fix IRS modernization—an IT program that’s been running for decades and billions over budget. He shares his motivation for public service, especially concerns about national debt, and how the role came sooner than he expected.
- •IRS modernization described as among the worst-managed US government IT efforts
- •Program has dragged on since the early 1990s with persistent "five years away" timelines
- •Sam’s personal motivation: public service and long-term fiscal concerns
- •Decision timing: encouraged by his wife; joined about six months prior
- •Initial mandate: focus on Treasury/IRS tech modernization via DOGE-related efforts
- 1:13 – 4:53
What a Government CIO Actually Does (and Why the Role Became Non-Technical)
Sam contrasts the private-sector CTO with the government CIO, tracing the CIO role back to “librarian” roots. He argues the federal CIO position often lacks technical qualification requirements, which contributes to poor tech governance.
- •CIO role evolved from records management to modern IT oversight
- •Government CIOs historically often non-technical due to missing standards
- •Lack of qualification requirements compared to roles like chief counsel
- •Sam’s engineering background and experience as a software builder
- •DOGE-adjacent placement: Treasury employee coordinating with DOGE authorities
- 4:53 – 12:46
Internal Politics: Replacing IRS IT Leadership During Peak Tax Season
Sam describes recommending that roughly 50 IRS IT leaders be put on administrative leave to address a leadership technical-competence gap. He explains why the move was controversial, how it improved decision-making speed, and what it revealed about incentives and promotion-by-tenure.
- •Leadership lacked technical understanding for multi-billion-dollar decisions
- •Administrative leave used as a restructuring lever (not immediate firing)
- •Tenure-based promotions and inflated performance reviews block accountability
- •Empathy for displaced leaders: many knew they weren’t set up to succeed
- •Post-change outcomes: faster delivery and improved decision velocity
- 12:46 – 17:44
What Government Work Feels Like: Committees, Inertia, and the Fax Machine Mystery
Sam gives a ground-level view of how bureaucracy slows execution even when priorities are clear. He uses the IRS’s continued dependence on faxing as a case study in institutional inertia and unclear ownership of policy levers.
- •“Cover your ass” culture: decisions by committee to avoid blame
- •Top-down leadership can unlock stalled work—but many issues remain stuck
- •IRS receives ~60M faxes/year with tens of thousands of fax lines
- •Security misconceptions: fax perceived as safer than modern digital methods
- •Hardest part: identifying who owns a decision and how to change policy
- 17:44 – 31:00
Why It’s So Hard to Fire (or Even Manage) Poor Performers in Civil Service
Sam explains the historical origin of civil service protections and how they now impede performance management. He describes how unions, review processes, and incentives lead to “promote to move” behavior and persistent organizational bloat.
- •Civil service created to end the “spoils system” and preserve continuity
- •Modern challenge: protections make removing poor performers extremely hard
- •Negative reviews trigger heavy process and union pushback
- •Common workaround: promote weak performers to move them elsewhere
- •Result: growing layers of management and low accountability
- 31:00 – 44:36
Contractor Bloat and Vendor Incentives: Why Procurement Produces Bad Outcomes
Sam details how vendors exploit government negotiation norms, leading to huge pricing swings and lock-in. He argues the procurement system, salary caps, and limited technical leadership combine to push work to contractors—even when it’s inefficient.
- •Vendor example: initial $2M/year quote ballooning toward $100M/year
- •Government historically seen as a “soft touch” that doesn’t negotiate
- •CIO compensation and disclosure rules limit experienced leadership intake
- •Cybersecurity contract review: many vendors paid despite years of non-use
- •Salary caps drive “pay contractor $500K to get a $250K person” arbitrage
- 44:36 – 56:18
How the FAR Process Breaks Simple Purchases (Contests, Delays, and Resellers)
Sam breaks down the procurement mechanics that turn straightforward buys into year-long ordeals. He explains bid contests that pause projects, value-added reseller “fake auctions,” and how the system over-optimizes for process rather than outcomes.
- •Competitive bidding becomes a black box after engineers submit needs
- •Bid contests can halt progress for 30+ days repeatedly
- •Paper-digitization initiative delayed despite costing >$1M/day in backlog impact
- •Value-added resellers skim margins to simulate competition for fixed licenses
- •GSA seen as key actor for reforming procurement mechanics
- 56:18 – 1:27:44
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse—and the ‘Small Disadvantaged Business’ Fast Lane Scam
Sam discusses how blurry the lines are between waste and fraud when contracts auto-renew unused. He highlights how certain small-business procurement pathways can bypass competition and enable pass-through “graft” at enormous scale.
- •Example: $20M/year software licenses never activated yet repeatedly renewed
- •Ambiguity: waste vs fraud vs abuse often hard to prove without investigation
- •8A / Small Disadvantaged Business pathways can bypass normal competition
- •Pattern of $24.9M contracts suggests deliberate cap-avoidance behavior
- •Estimated scale of pass-through skimming: tens of billions annually
- 1:27:44 – 1:43:02
What DOGE Is in Practice: High-Agency Operators, Savings Metrics, and Data Quality Reality
Sam reframes DOGE as a loosely connected group focused on mission execution and debt reduction. He explains why reported savings figures are hard to calculate (different contract types, poor data, shifting baselines) and why real progress depends on basic financial and systems visibility.
- •DOGE described as mission-oriented, execution-focused, and priority-driven
- •High-agency behavior is rare inside government and must be cultivated
- •Savings accounting is nuanced: firm-fixed price vs BPA vs IDIQ vs renewals
- •Data quality issues make even “what’s our budget?” hard to answer quickly
- •At IRS: contract cancellations estimated conservatively, but true savings depend on year-end reconciliation
- 1:43:02 – 1:48:55
Modernization Is a Trap: Mainframes, Shadow IT, and the 108 ‘Sources of Truth’
Sam argues the government’s “modernize once, then never touch” mindset is fundamentally incompatible with software. He explains how legacy systems aren’t inherently bad, why mainframes can be optimal for batch processing, and how dysfunctional central IT creates fragmented shadow systems.
- •Software is a living system: needs continuous iteration (the “puppy” analogy)
- •Modernization cycles create parallel systems rather than true replacement
- •Mainframes excel at batch processing—sometimes the best tool for the job
- •IRS suffers from massive fragmentation and “shadow IT” across sub-teams
- •Data integrity is priority #1; IRS counted ~108 competing sources of truth
- 1:48:55 – 2:13:45
Security, ATO/FedRAMP, and Why ‘Move Fast’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Break Safety’
Sam responds to fears about cloud migration, “mega-APIs,” and DOGE being reckless with taxpayer data. He describes how approval processes (ATO) can take years, how FedRAMP improved cross-government security standards, and why cybersecurity leadership is hard to recruit in a politicized environment.
- •Public fear often driven by misunderstood technical terms (APIs, cloud)
- •ATO processes can take years, freezing toolchains and productivity
- •FedRAMP creates reusable security accreditation across agencies
- •Cybersecurity leadership hiring is constrained by pay caps and reputational risk
- •Politics distorts incentives: discovering a breach can be framed as causing it
- 2:13:45 – 2:35:26
How the IRS Enforces Tax Policy: From New Laws to Edge Cases to Mainframe Code
Sam explains what the IRS actually does (more ledger and compliance than direct tax collection) and how policy becomes implementable reality. He uses a recent tax bill example to show the chain from legal interpretation to forms, interfaces, and core business logic—plus the endless edge cases that slow everything down.
- •IRS is closer to QuickBooks (ledger/compliance) than Stripe (payments)
- •Compliance and enforcement include a criminal investigations function
- •Tax law changes require legal interpretation before engineering implementation
- •Implementation complexity comes from scale and edge cases (accessibility, IDs, special groups)
- •Nearly every policy change ultimately becomes a technology problem to ship by deadlines
- 2:35:26 – 2:55:44
How Long Fixing Government IT Takes—and What Must Change to Make It Stick
Sam estimates a multi-year path to solving foundational IRS data integrity issues, but says the real fix is organizational: leadership quality, culture, and continuous software practices. He illustrates broader government dysfunction with a cross-agency payroll story and ends by describing how his own work style and life had to change for government service.
- •IRS data integrity target: achievable in ~3 years with fewer procurement blockers
- •Core issue is management/leadership, not IT budget size
- •Incremental improvement beats rewrite-and-cutover “hubris”
- •Other agencies face similar “it works, so we don’t fix it” patterns (HHS payroll example)
- •Personal tradeoffs: constant meetings, limited deep work, pay cut, stepping back from Levels leadership
