This watchdog does more than bark
As the comptroller general of the United States and head of the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO), I understand all too well the fiscal challenges that our country faces. In almost every congressional hearing or member meeting, I speak to these challenges and highlight the drivers of our record debt levels. But I do not just warn of a troubled financial outlook. I offer concrete, evidence-based actions that Congress and agencies can take to improve the nation’s bottom line.
In an Aug. 11 opinion piece, Dan Lips uses two recent reports to question GAO’s commitment to helping solve the nation’s fiscal problems. Lips’s piece misses the big picture and is flat out wrong. GAO’s commitment to improving the government’s fiscal condition is unwavering and unmatched.
Since becoming comptroller general, GAO has documented more than $1 trillion in financial benefits. These benefits derive from Congress and executive branch agencies consistently implementing more than 75 percent of our thousands of recommendations. This impressive outcome does not happen by chance; it reflects our deep commitment to improving government and devoting countless hours of working with policymakers and agencies to get the recommendations implemented.
Two signature bodies of work illustrate our commitment to helping Congress improve the nation’s financial outlook.
First, each year GAO issues a report that identifies fragmentation, overlap and duplication across the federal government. To help policymakers improve the government’s bottom line, we go beyond what is statutorily required by identifying actions that could result in cost savings and revenue enhancements. Also, the annual report includes a table listing specific actions that could each generate more than $1 billion in financial benefits.
These reports have a real impact. Since 2011, we have made 1,885 recommendations to Congress and executive branch agencies in the duplication and cost savings reports. As of April 2023, 73 percent of these recommendations were fully or partially implemented. This has resulted in about $600 billion in financial benefits.
Second, at the start of each new Congress, GAO issues its High Risk report. This report identifies programs that are at risk for fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement or are in need of major transformation. This series includes recommendations for improving the government’s fiscal position, including recommendations for tackling the $428 billion net tax gap and the government’s pervasive and growing improper payments, which topped $240 billion last fiscal year. Over the past 17 years, progress in addressing issues we raise in the high-risk series has resulted in, on average, $40 billion in financial benefits per year.
Congress listens to and acts on our suggestions. For example, in the June 2023 Senate hearing on our 2023 duplication and cost savings report — which identified 100 new actions for policymakers — Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) highlighted her bipartisan bill (co-sponsored with Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and John Kennedy (R-La.)), the Site-based Invoicing and Transparency Enhancement Act. This bill is consistent with our recommendation that Congress equalize the rates Medicare pays for certain health care services, which often vary depending on where the service is performed. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that equalizing Medicare payment rates for certain services could save $141 billion over a 10-year period. Similar bills that address this recommendation have been introduced in the House.
The reports that Lips cites — one summarizing all open recommendations to Congress and the other estimating the savings that could result from the implementation of all of our recommendations — were not designed, as Lips erroneously suggests, to provide Congress with a detailed roadmap for cost-savings reforms. Nonetheless, both reports include specific actions the federal government can take to save money. For example, we highlighted how Congress could spur Department of Energy action on disposing of low-activity radioactive waste at Hanford, which could lead to the department saving almost $100 billion and reducing certain risks.
Furthermore, completed in consultation with our congressional clients, these reports represent just two out of hundreds of products that we will issue this year that will offer new recommendations to save billions of dollars and improve government performance on behalf of the American taxpayer.
In considering this context and all of the ways we seek to communicate to policymakers about actions they could take to improve the nation’s bottom line, no one can fairly question GAO’s commitment to solving the nation’s fiscal challenges. For me and for many GAO staff, this is our life’s work. We are deeply committed to helping put the government on a more sustainable long-term path. We will not stop until we do.
Gene L. Dodaro is comptroller general of the United States.