From flashlight fixes to future-ready innovation: Why we must stop patching and start building anew

A little more than a decade ago, I was in my father’s garage, helping my son with his Pinewood Derby car. My dad — a retired shop teacher from Brooklyn — was famously handy and always inclined to fix things rather than replace them. That day, I noticed an old flashlight on his workbench and did a double take.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“That’s my flashlight,” he replied.

“Yes,” I said, “but why is there a toggle switch bolted to the side?”

He shrugged. “It broke, so I replaced it.”

This flashlight was from the 1970s. It was heavy, dim and clunky — and yet he had invested more in the toggle switch than it would have cost to buy a brand-new, energy-efficient LED flashlight. For me, that flashlight became a metaphor for how government still approaches technology: instead of replacing outdated systems with modern, efficient ones, we keep bolting on fixes, hoping the old framework will keep up.

The cost of patching instead of innovating

The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year maintaining legacy IT systems. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), nearly 80% of the federal IT budget still goes toward operations and maintenance of legacy systems. That leaves only a fraction for true modernization and innovation.

Many of these systems are decades old. Some agencies still run mission-critical applications on COBOL code written in the 1960s. Others maintain duplicative financial management systems that cost agencies $478 billion as estimated by the GAO in 2023 alone. These patchwork solutions are expensive, fragile and ill-suited to meet the demands of today’s digital-first world.

This approach is the equivalent of my dad’s toggle switch — keeping the light on, but at a higher long-term cost and with less functionality than what modern solutions can deliver.

Why incremental fixes aren’t enough

History offers powerful lessons on why patching old systems isn’t enough. Take the example of the B-2 stealth bomber. Unlike its predecessors, it wasn’t just an incremental upgrade of an existing airframe. It was a radical reinvention — a flying wing with stealth characteristics that fundamentally changed how missions could be carried out.

Traditional bombers, no matter how many upgrades they received, couldn’t evade increasingly sophisticated air defenses. Only by starting fresh could the military achieve the leap forward that was required.

Government IT finds itself in the same position today. Agencies have spent decades layering new technologies onto old infrastructure. While this keeps programs operational, it rarely unlocks the full potential of modern innovation or delivers the efficiency taxpayers deserve.

Innovation that delivers value

The good news is that when agencies do embrace modernization, the payoff is enormous. Consider:

• U.S. Postal Service & State Department Partnership: By collaborating on passport services, USPS modernized processes that once required multiple manual steps. Now citizens can apply at local post offices with digital workflows, reducing delays and improving customer experience.
• GSA’s NewPay Modernization: Replacing outdated payroll systems with a cloud-based shared service has streamlined operations across multiple agencies, cutting costs while improving reliability.
• Veterans Affairs’ Digital Health Services: By investing in new telehealth infrastructure, VA has delivered millions of remote care appointments to veterans — something that would have been impossible on patched-together legacy systems.

Each of these examples underscores the same point: when government invests in building new, future-ready solutions, it can leapfrog decades of inefficiency, reduce costs and deliver dramatically better services to citizens.

Why this matters now

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the initiative Elon Musk led under the Trump administration — initially struck a chord because it highlighted the urgent need to rethink how services are delivered. Musk is no longer in that role, but the underlying imperative remains: the federal government must modernize, innovate and save taxpayer dollars. Patchwork fixes won’t get us there.

Beyond cost savings, this is also about resilience and trust. In an era of cyber threats, natural disasters and fast-changing citizen expectations, fragile legacy systems are a liability. Outages at one agency ripple across entire sectors. Every delay in processing benefits or renewing passports erodes public trust. Innovation isn’t just a technical necessity — it’s a foundation for government credibility and mission success.

From flashlights to futureproofing

Real innovation isn’t about fixing old switches. It’s about recognizing when it’s time to stop patching and start fresh. That’s not always an easy choice — modernization requires upfront investment, political will and a shift in culture. But the alternative is a government perpetually stuck in “flashlight mode” — dim, inefficient and weighed down by decades of bolt-on fixes.

The public and private sectors alike have the opportunity — and responsibility — to accelerate this shift. By embracing innovation over patchwork, we can:

• Unlock the full potential of AI, cloud and secure networks. 
• Free up billions of dollars for mission delivery instead of maintenance.
• Build systems that are resilient, secure and adaptable to future needs.
• Restore citizen trust by delivering services that work the first time.

The flashlight on my desk today doesn’t work anymore. But it serves as a daily reminder: innovation means knowing when to retire the old and embrace the new. Washington’s future — and the trust of the people it serves — depends on our willingness to do the same.

As Vice President of MetTel Public Sector, Don Parente is responsible for direct sales and solution architecture for U.S. Federal agencies, states, local and education customers. Don also works with systems integrators to deliver solutions to U.S. government clients.