On Tuesday, Congress proved that lawmakers can still work together on passing good government reforms when the House of Representatives passed the Improving Government for America’s Taxpayers Act. The vote shows growing bipartisan support for addressing the nation’s fiscal challenges by using nonpartisan oversight to reform government programs.
The subject of the legislation is the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which, working on behalf of Congress, reviews federal programs and issues recommendations to Congress and agency heads about ways that the government can work better.
GAO is remarkably efficient. For each dollar that Congress has spent on its watchdog over the past five years, GAO’s work has resulted in an average of $158 in financial benefits. Last year, GAO reported saving taxpayers $66 billion after receiving only $661 million from Congress. For example, GAO’s work saved the Internal Revenue Service $1.4 billion by preventing invalid tax refunds and $2.8 billion by reforming a Medicare payment process.
