I have written a little Cobol code — in the early 1980s. It is somewhat arcane but not really cryptic. In fact, it’s really quite easy to read — here’s an example.

Another language I used at the time is called APL. That really is arcane.

Cobol was maligned even back in the day. It isn’t terrible, but completely inappropriate for modern data processing.

But the Cobol is just a symptom of a governmental system that has been broken for generations.

Because of the 50 American states each with different rules, with no real channel to cooperate, and even with a certain suspicion or competitiveness between them, almost every data processing function of government in America needs to be done 51 times in 51 different ways.