Today, I submitted a written testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. Click here to download a full PDF of the testimony.
Chairman Mullin, Ranking Member Heinrich, and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony about the Government Accountability Office’s appropriations. I am a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, an organization focused on developing technology, talent, and ideas to create a better, freer, and more abundant future. I am writing to respectfully recommend several reporting requirements for the Subcommittee to include in the report accompanying the FY2026 funding bill to increase GAO’s return on investment for American taxpayers.
Each year, GAO helps Congress and the executive branch achieve cost savings and valuable government reforms. Since 2002, GAO’s work has achieved $1.5 trillion in financial benefits, according to their estimates. The Comptroller General also estimates that GAO’s annual return on investment (ROI) has been $123 to $1 over the past six years. But lawmakers should consider opportunities to increase GAO’s return on investment and reverse the following trends. Over the past three years, GAO’s ROI has averaged $78 to $1, which is 37 percent below GAO’s six-year average. In FY2024, GAO reported that its four-year implementation rate for recommendations was 70 percent, or well below GAO’s target of 80 percent and lower than its preceding five year average of 76 percent.
When Congress has directed GAO to focus on increasing its return on investment, the watchdog agency has saved hundreds of billions of dollars. In 2010, former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn passed an amendment to legislation raising the debt ceiling directing GAO to issue annual reports identifying duplication across government agencies and programs. To date, GAO has issued 14 duplication reports which have led to “$667 billion in cost savings and revenue increases.” In addition, GAO reports that “addressing remaining matters of and recommendations could save tens of billions more dollars and improve government services.” Without Congress requiring GAO to do this annual work, much of this savings may not have been achieved. According to Senator Coburn’s staff at the time, GAO was asked to do the duplication reports, but declined, which is why he offered his amendment to establish the reporting requirement in law. In this way, Senator Coburn’s 2010 amendment and the annual duplication reports provide an example for current lawmakers about the opportunity to achieve cost savings through mandated reporting and the need to direct GAO’s work through law to ensure that their work aligns with congressional objectives.
In the report accompanying the FY2026 legislative branch funding bill, I respectfully recommend the Subcommittee include the following.
First, the Subcommittee should direct GAO to begin, within 90 days, establishing deadlines on new recommendations for federal agencies to increase timely action by federal agencies to achieve government savings. In 2024, the House Subcommittee on the legislative branch included report language to require GAO to begin a pilot project for establishing timeframes “in which a recommendation should be able to be fully implemented,” and to brief the committee on the pilot. In 2025, Congress should require GAO to begin setting deadlines on new recommendations as a way to help GAO to increase its four-year implementation rate and annual return on investment for American taxpayers.
Second, the Committee should direct GAO to conduct retrospective regulatory reviews to identify potential rules and regulations that could be streamlined. GAO has statutory responsibilities related to reviewing and monitoring federal regulations, including through the Congressional Review Act to maintain a public database of proposed rules. In 2024, Congress enacted the GAO Database Modernization Act, which requires federal agencies to notify GAO of rules that are “being revoked, suspended, replaced, amended, or otherwise made ineffective.” Congress should direct GAO to use technology to conduct retrospective regulatory reviews. The state of Ohio has used artificial intelligence and human oversight to streamline the state’s code of regulations, eliminating nearly five million words, or one-third of the text. A similar effort at the federal level, led by the nonpartisan GAO, could identify significant efficiencies that could be achieved by streamlining regulations.
Third, the Subcommittee should clarify that existing congressional mandates require GAO to identify and estimate potential cost savings associated with each unimplemented recommendation or open matters for congressional consideration. Since 2023, Congress has required GAO to issue annual reports estimating potential cost savings that could be achieved by enacting unimplemented recommendations for federal agencies and open matters for Congressional consideration. To improve the usefulness of these reports, the Subcommittee should require GAO to provide individual estimates of cost savings or financial benefits associated with each recommendation or open matter for congressional consideration.
Fourth, the Subcommittee should direct the Congressional Budget Office to annually review GAO’s return on investment analysis, as well as the potential budgetary effects associated with GAO’s unimplemented recommendations and open matters for Congressional consideration. Congress has already directed GAO to make annual estimates of potential cost savings associated with its unimplemented recommendations. To improve transparency about government waste, the subcommittee should direct the Congressional Budget Office to issue an annual report estimating potential budgetary effects associated with unimplemented GAO recommendations. According to former CBO Director Keith Hall, such an annual CBO report would offer a “useful measure of preventable waste and fraud that would help Congress put pressure on agencies to act” and “help make agencies more accountable in how they spend taxpayers’ dollars.”
Fifth, the Subcommittee should direct the GAO Inspector General to review GAO’s “Future of Work” policies, including the application of locality pay for remote workers, and report on GAO employees attendance practices. The Inspector General should review all policies of the “Future of Work” agreement, and specifically review whether GAO employees are receiving accurate locality pay based on their place of work. The GAO Inspector General should also review and report on the attendance of GAO staff in the office at its headquarters and field offices.
As Comptroller General Gene Dodaro’s term comes to an end, the future of GAO is in the hands of President Trump and Congress. The next Comptroller General must be given a mandate to correct the nation’s “unsustainable fiscal path” by leveraging oversight to identify and achieve cost savings for the American people. The United States cannot afford to have 30 percent of GAO’s recommendations ignored and for hundreds of billions of cost-savings measures to be delayed. The Subcommittee can do its part to provide that mandate by continuing its leadership in directing GAO to take these actions to increase its return on investment.
