The Congress of the United States created the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in 1921. The original idea was to equip the legislative branch with the ability to monitor the expenditures of the federal government to ensure that taxpayer money was being spent as intended. This mission preoccupied the GAO for the next 50 years.
Changing Role
However, with the vast expansion of the federal government beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, it was decided that GAO should review government programs more broadly to determine their effectiveness in practice.
Over the next half-century, GAO staff – currently, 3000 employees, with headquarters in Washington, DC, and 11 field offices nationwide – continued to engage in financial accounting but expanded their mandate to include program evaluation and policy analysis.
GAO began assembling multidisciplinary teams to conduct field interviews with program recipients to evaluate how well program goals were being met and to make specific recommendations for improvement.
- How were government programs performing in practice?
- Where did they fail to measure up?
- Should Congress expand or curtail funding them?
- What improvements could be made?
Typically, each GAO assessment report concludes with specific recommendations for action by the agency under review. These agencies may respond in writing with comments on GAO's report. GAO may also conduct a follow-up investigation to determine if agencies have improved their performance in the areas cited.
Continuing Evolution
By 1980, just 10% of GAO's work was dedicated to traditional financial accounting. Over the next 40 years, the work of the GAO has continued to evolve to meet the ever-expanding scope and volume of demands from the U.S. Congress for greater accountability and oversight of the policies and programs implemented by the federal government.
For example, the GAO has expanded its in-house research and investigative capabilities with permanent expert staff dedicated to advanced science and technology programs. It's also added more highly trained economists to assist the legislative branch in proactively assessing executive branch budget planning even before congressionally authorized funds are appropriated and disbursed.
In 2004 Congress, at the request of GAO's Comptroller General, changed the name of the GAO to the Government Accountability Office to reflect its ever-expanding mandate.
How The GAO Works
GAO has long prided itself on its independence from the rest of the federal government, especially the Executive branch and its various agencies. The GAO generally responds to requests from members of Congress and the staff of standing House and Senate committees that need support investigating Executive branch programs that are the subject of ongoing congressional debate.
GAO staff meet with the requester to clarify the terms and scope of GAO's planned review. While working to meet the requester's needs, GAO staff try to avoid feeding into a narrow partisan or individual member agenda. GAO staff always insist on conducting an impartial investigation that will assess the status and impact of a program under review in a fair, objective, and non-partisan fashion.
Occasionally, GAO will take the initiative to conduct a "self-generated." study without a specific request from a congressional committee or member. For example, this was the case in 1991-1992 when GAO launched an investigation of postwar reconstruction planning by the U.S. Agency for International Development in El Salvador.
These cases are exceedingly rare but are indicative of GAO's determination to function as an independent congressional watchdog.
Impact Of GAO
Over the years, Congress has come to rely more heavily on the GAO for support in assessing federal programs. Available data bear this out:
- In the 2020 fiscal year, 90 percent of Congress' standing committees requested GAO investigations – more than 300 in that year alone.
- GAO was asked to testify dozens of times before 40 separate congressional committees or subcommittees.
- In 2021-2022, GAO testimony covered major areas of domestic policy planning, including decisions relating to COVID-19, disaster preparedness and recovery, and efforts to bolster the federal science and technology labor force.
Research shows that the federal government implements about 75% of GAO's policy and program recommendations within five years of a GAO report being released. In addition, according to GAO estimates, the agency's findings and recommendations have resulted in over $1 trillion in financial benefits – primarily in cost-savings – across a range of government programs and operations since 2005.
Where GAO Fits
GAO is not the only independent agency that assists Congress in better understanding and evaluating the current policy landscape. Two others are:
- Congressional Budget Office (CBO), created in 1952, with 275 employees, is formally tasked with assessing the financial integrity of budget plans developed by the Executive Branch.
- Congressional Research Service (CRS), established in 1946, with 600 employees, functions as a quasi-public policy research institute that provides Congress with important background information on new policies and pending legislation.
The CBO does not operate at the request of members or standing committees/subcommittees of Congress. Its trained staff issues annual reports and cost estimates on proposed budgets for federal programs. In addition, the CBO does not issue policy or program recommendations. It leaves it to members of Congress to interpret – and fight over – its budget evaluations, which members frequently do.
Like the GAO, CRS takes its direction from committees or members of Congress. Its mission is to weigh the pros and cons of major policy issues before Congress with authoritative secondary research supplemented with expert interviews.
The GAO's overall chief is the Comptroller General of the United States, who is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a 15-year nonrenewable term. A special bipartisan committee under the authority of the Comptroller General nominates candidates to head up the GAO. Similarly, the heads of CBO and CRS are nominated and approved in a bipartisan fashion to help ensure their agencies' impartiality.
Calls For Modernization
In 2021, Congress sponsored a set of special hearings to discuss improving the work of the GAO, CBO, and CRS. Experts agreed on several problems that needed to be addressed.
Funding Instability
Not knowing the size of their budget from year to year, the three agencies were becoming "risk averse," reducing the size and scope of their investigations, compromising the integrity of their oversight.
Oversight Resistance
All three agencies faced growing difficulty securing access to government officials and documents needed to conduct their investigations and complete their reports.
Lack Of Autonomy
Some agencies, like GAO and CRS, largely responded to requesters; others, like CBO, operated more independently. There was a growing need for all three agencies to act more autonomously to better anticipate the expanding oversight needs of the entire Congress, regardless of partisan agendas and affiliation.
Lack Of Transparency
Agency reports were not as readily available to the public as they might be. CRS had only recently allowed the general public to review some of its older reports. More efforts should be made to post agency reports online upon their release.
Congress took no specific action in the wake of the 2021 hearing. However, a summary of the proceedings suggested that future action would be needed:
"The Legislative branch policy support agencies were created at different times to meet varying needs. Congress has evolved, but some agency processes remain driven by their bureaucratic structures and internal incentives. Others are driven by fear. Now is the time to reconsider the structure and rebuild it around meeting the needs of Congress as a user of information."