EXCLUSIVE: One Rule Has Saved Americans From Billions In Wasteful Government Spending

A rule requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to publish annual reports on wasteful spending has saved billions of taxpayer dollars since 2011, according to an Open the Books report released Wednesday.

Former Republican Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn amended the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 to require the GAO to include an investigation into duplicate spending between government entities in its annual report, which has saved the government $667.5 billion since its first report in 2011, according to Open the Books. Congress, however, had made efforts to stifle the GAO’s mission, threatening to cut its funding right after its first report, and has been the slowest to adopt the GAO’s waste-cutting recommendations.

“The federal government spends so much money, that literally no one can tell taxpayers the number of distinct programs that exist across the executive branch,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s thanks to the persistence of the late Sen. Tom Coburn that Congress is obliged to actually do something to root out duplicative, wasteful spending. If not for the Coburn Rule, Congress would be happy to continue shoveling money out the door, each committee operating as its own fiefdom making spending decisions in a vacuum.”

Federal agencies resolved 75% of the 2,018 recommendations from the GAO, while Congress has only resolved 46% of the office’s 140 recommendations, according to the report. As of today, 549 recommendations remain open and not fully addressed.

“Despite the best efforts of some lawmakers, they’ve been cowed into keeping the Coburn rule and allowing the GAO to continue highlighting waste – a win for taxpayers that has persisted for more than a decade and racked up hundreds of billions in savings,” Andrzejewski told the DCNF.