Billions left on table when recommendations for cost-cutting ignored

Topline: An annual report from the Government Accountability Office has saved taxpayers $667.5 billion over the last 14 years, but Congress and federal agencies have yet to address hundreds of the report’s recommendations, according to a new study by OpenTheBooks.

Key facts: In 2011, an amendment introduced by the late Sen. Tom Coburn established the GAO annual report, which identifies federal programs that duplicate each other’s efforts and waste untold amounts of federal money.

One former Coburn staffer told OpenTheBooks that every year members of Congress try to eliminate the report that shines a spotlight on the government’s unwise fiscal decisions.

The GAO has made 2,018 recommendations for saving money since 2011, but 549 matters and recommendations have either not been addressed at all or have been only partially addressed. Six federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and Internal Revenue Service, each have 20 or more open recommendations.

For example, the GAO says the IRS could recapture tens of billions of dollars in just two years by taking more actions to identify Covid-19 tax credits improperly awarded to businesses.

The Social Security Administration could save $2.2 billion in 10 years by preventing Americans from double dipping and collecting overlapping payouts from Disability Insurance and Unemployment Insurance. The GAO first recommended a new law be passed in 2014, but that has yet to happen.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency vets employees for other federal agencies, but it is incorrectly estimating how much money it needs to operate. The GAO says agencies could save hundreds of millions of dollars if the estimates were correct and vetting services were cheaper.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Critical quote: “Members of Congress are often beholden to special interest groups and would rather continue funding an old program instead of eliminating it,” Coburn said in 2010. “At the same time, Congress will then create new programs that do the very same thing and do it just as poorly. There’s no ineffective, inefficient program that the government can’t recreate at an even higher cost.”

Summary: Lawmakers and federal agencies have a responsibility to act swiftly and maximize the potential savings from the GAO’s “Duplication Nation” report.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

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