Former President Barack Obama’s top tech adviser has praised the Trump administration’s push to modernize government IT, singling out Jared Kushner’s expanding bid to make Uncle Sam much more customer friendly.
In a New York Times story that mocked President Trump over his sometimes old school ways in preferring paper over digital delivery of information, Aneesh Chopra, Obama’s chief technology officer, said that the administration was in sync with the Obama effort to reform government technology.
He told the newspaper that there was a “surprising alignment on a number of key areas.”
He said: “I may strongly disagree with the president’s views of health care reform … but I am pleased with the president’s commitment to build on progress on the long-term technical foundation of what we refer to as a health care internet.”
While it is easy for critics to focus on Trump’s crowd pleasing stabs at green technology, his team led by son-in-law Kushner have pushed far further than any past administration into overhauling government technology that both cuts costs and helps taxpayers get the help they need, sometimes with a simple click on a government website.
“Mr. Chopra and several of the president’s aides credited Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, with pushing Mr. Trump to recognize the importance of some of those efforts,” said the Times.
A recent Washington Examiner story noted that Kushner has made IT reform his goal.
“Jared is deeply passionate about this,” said Matt Lira, Kushner’s associate with the White House Office of American Innovation.
He explained that changes made to government websites, including at Veterans Affairs and Agriculture, have been a big help to consumers, vendors, farmers, and veterans.
What’s more, it is helping to improve the reputation of those agencies.
“When the average American interacts with their government, there is a huge delta between the quality of those experiences and the quality of any other experience in their life,” said Lira. “Every time one of these negative customer experiences occurs, it undermines the people’s faith that institutions are working for them. They deserve better — that is why we are focused on improving the quality of those experiences,” he added.
