Let s look at some of the problems. Public information has never occupied the attention of Congress to any great extent. In order to pass this or any other piece of legislation, it must have the agreement of virtually every party of interest. Despite the expectation that someday everyone will communicate digitally, we currently reside in a predominately paper-based society. For this reason alone, we cannot build an information system, which relegates printing and paper information systems as secondary.
Printing is a manufacturing process that requires a commitment to relatively expensive equipment.
Although equipment options are changing, the economies of printing indicate that authorizing printing activities in numerous agencies or branches of government would be a needless and expensive endeavor. Agencies that have not cooperated with federal information mandates in the past are unlikely to do so in the future unless there are significant penalties for failure to comply. There is currently an 0MB directive that requires executive agencies to comply with the provisions of Title 44 regarding agencies providing materials to the Superintendent of Documents. However, even with this directive in effect there are still an numbered amount of documents that are currently unattainable by the public. In the area of printing, we have suffered through decades of federal agencies ignoring the law requiring the use of GPO for printing and printing procurement needs, which is why this is an area we would like to see examined in any reform considerations.