NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE C onservative House Republicans frustrated by the Biden-McCarthy debt deal recently won a symbolic victory by shutting down House floor operations. The protest revealed the ongoing struggle for power between the moderate and conservative factions of the conference.
But these attention-grabbing efforts risk distracting from more politically feasible ways of achieving significant savings. By requiring federal agencies to implement nonpartisan watchdog recommendations, Congress could save taxpayers more than $100 billion while showing the American people that the legislative branch is capable of overseeing the executive.
On Wednesday, June 14, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before a Senate panel about the Government Accountability Office’s latest report on duplicative federal programs. Over the past 13 years, the congressional watchdog agency’s work on this topic has saved the federal government roughly $600 billion and counting. That includes $47 billion in new savings achieved just over the past year.
But budget hawks should be dismayed that Congress and the federal government waste billions by failing to answer GAO’s recommendations to address duplication, fragmentation, and overlap in federal programs. The Comptroller General testified that a quarter of GAO’s recommendations to trim waste in this area have not been implemented, even though doing so would result in “tens of billions of dollars in additional financial benefits.”
A new report from the watchdog shows Congress’s current missed opportunities to save. Requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to require the same payments for services provided in different settings such as hospitals or traditional physician offices could save $141 billion over the next decade. Mandating that the Energy Department update its treatment of radioactive waste would also save tens of billions. The report includes several other immediate actions that Congress and federal agencies could take to save billions.
These potential cost-savings are only the tip of the iceberg of what Congress could save by requiring federal agencies to implement GAO recommendations. Today, more than 4,800 recommendations remain open. This includes more than 500 recommendations that have been open since 2016.
According to a report released yesterday, the GAO estimates that implementing its open recommendations “could produce $92 billion to $182 billion of measurable, future financial benefits.” Congress required this new GAO report when it passed the omnibus funding bill in December. The comptroller general also owes Congress a new report with suggestions for ways that lawmakers can require agencies to act upon GAO’s top recommendation, which was required by the Improving Government for America’s Taxpayers Act, included in the annual defense bill. Like the latest duplication report, this report should provide a roadmap for Congress to achieve tens of billions in new fiscal savings. Many of GAO’s open recommendations are focused on curbing federal misspending, which cost the federal government at least $200 billion last year.
In past periods of fiscal restraint, Congress has rightly focused on implementing GAO’s recommendations to achieve cost-savings, in part because these reforms don’t require lawmakers to make difficult decisions that hurt key constituencies. At Wednesday’s hearing, Dodaro explained that the 2011 spending caps spurred Congress to implement watchdog reforms and expressed optimism that this will happen again. “With the current discussion about trying to restrain federal spending . . . Congress should look more at our savings, because we’re making recommendations where people aren’t going to get hurt, . . . where you are wasting money,” Dodaro reasoned. “There are smart ways to save money, and they deserve a lot of attention.”
In 2023, trimming tens of billions of dollars of waste from the federal budget by implementing watchdog recommendations should be a priority for all lawmakers and particularly fiscal conservatives. Legislation to require agencies to implement GAO’s good-government reforms should attract bipartisan support given the watchdog agency’s nonpartisan reputation on Capitol Hill. In this way, passing good-government legislation to curb government waste could even help establish bipartisan cooperation and muscle memory to address more challenging fiscal matters down the road.
At the same time, for Speaker McCarthy and the House Republican majority, focusing committee attention and floor time on curbing government waste and improving efficiency would show American taxpayers that they remain committed to continuing cutting spending after the debt-limit deal with President Biden.
Trimming even a hundred billion or more in waste from the federal budget won’t solve the nation’s fiscal challenges. But it would show real progress and potential bipartisan support for good-government reforms. Congressional leaders should take advantage of this opportunity and listen to their watchdog.