The race to cut federal agency budgets is at a fever pitch. Throughout fiscal year 2013, the tightening of belts could be heard throughout the beltway as the words 'sequestration' and 'fiscal cliff' became real. Based on the FY2013 budget, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit will likely increase by $2 trillion, resulting in a cumulative deficit of $3.2 trillion in the 2018-2022 timeframe. Given this, federal agencies are taking a fresh look at curtailing the growth of the deficit, and initiatives such as outsourcing and shared services are back en vogue. The US Government Accountability Office warned in 2012 that, until agencies routinely assess their IT investment portfolios to identify and reduce duplicative systems, the government's current situation of having hundreds of similar IT investments will continue to exist. To anticipate what's ahead, it helps to examine the government's history of financial system modernization and consolidation efforts.