Congressional investigators issued a report on Tuesday which will get a lot of play in the weeks to come about duplicative and wasteful spending in Washington. Whether it makes a difference is another question.
The report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was an indictment both of the Legislative and Executive Branches for allowing various agencies to grow with little effort to make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently.
The GAO study also referred to numerous other reviews by both the GAO and agency watchdogs over the last twenty years, repeatedly pointing out where different departments had failed to follow recommendations to save money.
In other words, the GAO put together a study which grabbed a few headlines, maybe presented it at a Congressional hearing, got some lawmakers to demand action, and then everything faded from the public view and the report ended up on a dusty shelf, all but forgotten.
As I hinted at in my lead paragraph, the same could always happen with this GAO review as well.
For example, the GAO has repeatedly pointed out that the federal government could have saved billions by building its own office facilities, instead of leasing space.
"In December 1989, GAO found that GSA could have saved $12 billion over 30 years by constructing instead of leasing real property in 43 projects," this latest report said.
In other words, in the 22 years since that report, the feds didn't follow through on an easy way to save money.
"The Executive Branch had made little progress in implementing similar recommendations that GAO made in 1994," the report stated in a section focusing on tax breaks, which investigators say need a thorough review to make sure they are worth what's spent on them by taxpayers.
"In the 1990s, GAO issued a series of reports that identified program overlap and possible areas of resulting inefficiencies," the report stated in a section on job training programs.
Just to reinforce how much is at stake in this area, in 2009, there were 47 different federal programs on job search, training and counseling that had a budget of $18 billion.
44 of those 47 programs "overlap with at least one other program in that they provide at least one similar service to a similar population," the report read.
In other words, there is a lot of damning evidence of how the Congress and Executive Branch agenices are repeatedly told that issues exist, but nothing is ever done about it.
How about now?
GAO found 82 different federal programs to help improve teacher quality with $4 billion in spending.
HHS has 30 different programs for people who have difficult accessing public transportation.
GAO reported 19 programs in three different federal agencies do economic development that is focused on tourism.
28 programs in four different federal agencies overlap on economic development that is focused on "new markets."
39 federal programs in four agencies overlap on "plans and strategies" for economic development.
You get the point.
So, how will this get solved? It takes leadership from the Congress to conduct oversight and keep the heat on federal agencies, and leadership in the Executive Branch to convince people that saving money is more important than "turf."
There hasn't been much of that in the time that I've watched Capitol Hill up close.
