About E-Gov
E-Gov Background
In his February 2002 budget submission to Congress, President Bush outlined a management agenda for making government more focused on citizens and results, which includes expanding Electronic Government - or E-Government. E-Government uses improved Internet-based technology to make it easy for citizens and businesses to interact with the government, save taxpayer dollars, and streamline citizen-to-government communications.
The President’s E-Government Strategy has identified several high-payoff, government-wide initiatives to integrate agency operations and information technology investments. The goal of these initiatives will be to eliminate redundant systems and significantly improve the government’s quality of customer service for citizens and businesses.
The President Urges Agencies to Work Together
“Our success depends on agencies working as a team across traditional boundaries to better serve the American people, focusing on citizens rather than individual agency needs … I thank agencies who have actively engaged in cross-agency teamwork, using E-Government to create more cost-effective and efficient ways to serve citizens, and I urge others to follow their lead.”
E-Gov Is Not Just Putting Forms Online
E-Gov does not mean putting scores of government forms on the Internet. It is about using technology to its fullest to provide services and information that is centered around citizen groups.
What The Public Expects
We know that the public expects this kind of service from the government, and that it uses the Internet more than ever before. Polling data from the Pew Foundation, for example, show that over 40 million Americans went on-line to look at Federal, State and local government policies, and over 20 million used the Internet to send their views to governments about those policies. This and similar data show that if the U.S. government can harness the power of technology, it will be meeting expectations of an increasingly wired citizenry.
