Mike Thompson: “today the U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO] issues its high risk series which identifies those federal programs that…”

“today the U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO] issues its high risk series which identifies those federal programs that are especially vulnerable to waste and mismanagement. The programs identified in these reports have cost taxpayers billions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures. Without adequate oversight from the Congress many more billions will be wasted before we are through. While the magnitude of the problems GAO has identified is shocking, I am optimistic that we have in place the tools to change Government for the better--but we must be willing to use them. There is a tendency when we are debating how to balance the budget or when the crisis de jour erupts, for Government to ignore management issues--those which to some are tedious, time-consuming and best left to the bean-counters. While management issues sometimes tend to get swept under the carpet during high-minded policy debates, we ignore them at our peril. We cannot implement any of our policy solutions without effective public administration. In an era of static resources, if we are to balance the budget, replace aging weapon systems at the Department of Defense [DOD], or attack drug abuse, we must achieve significant savings. To find the money, we have to make Government better while cheaper and, to do that, we have to do things smarter. GAO identifies 25 areas that we must focus on to avoid squandering billions of taxpayer dollars.”