[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE'S
2023 HIGH RISK LIST
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 26, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-24
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-119 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Shontel Brown, Ohio
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Jimmy Gomez, California
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Alex Rankin, Professional Staff Member
Sarah Feeney, Professional Staff Member
Kim Waskowsky, Professional Staff Member
Ryan Giachetti, Counsel
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 26, 2023................................... 1
Witnesses
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The Honorable Gene L Dodaro, Comptroller General, Government
Accountability Office (accompanied by expert witnesses)
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Written opening statements of the Members and the statement for
the witness are available on the U.S. House of Representatives
Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
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* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Report, GAO, ``Tax Compliance: Trends of IRS Audit Rates and
Results for Individual Taxpayers by Income''; submitted by
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
* Questions for the Record: to Hon. Dodaro; submitted by Rep.
Comer.
* Questions for the Record: to Hon. Dodaro; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
* Questions for the Record: to Hon. Dodaro; submitted by Rep.
Fallon.
* Questions for the Record: to Hon. Dodaro; submitted by Rep.
Perry.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE'S 2023 HIGH RISK LIST
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Wednesday, April 26, 2023
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Accountability,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Comer, Gosar, Foxx, Grothman,
Palmer, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, Fallon, Donalds, Armstrong,
Timmons, Burchett, Greene, McClain, Boebert, Fry, Luna,
Langworthy, Burlison, Raskin, Norton, Krishnamoorthi, Khanna,
Ocasio-Cortez, Porter, Bush, Brown, Stansbury, Garcia, Frost,
Balint, Lee, Casar, Crockett, Goldman, and Moskowitz.
Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and
Accountability will come to order.
I want to welcome everyone here this morning.
Without objection, the Chair may call a recess at any time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Today's hearing is an opportunity for this Committee to
leverage an important tool in combating waste, fraud, abuse,
and mismanagement while safeguarding taxpayer dollars. That
tool is the Government Accountability Office's 2023 High-Risk
List. The 37 areas contained on this list represent programs
within the Federal Government where there is a high risk for
fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement. The list measures
progress and deficiencies so that Congress can take action to
conduct meaningful oversight and make those programs more
efficient.
Federal Government programs created and funded by Congress
must fulfill their intended purpose and meet mission objectives
while being careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. Yet too
often, massive Federal programs struggle to meet their
objectives and become vulnerable to fraud and abuse. The High-
Risk List is a critical tool for evaluating whether the
programs created and funded by Congress are working as designed
for the American people.
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, publishes
this report at the start of each Congress. GAO's High-Risk
Report provides status updates on how programs are performing
and recommendations on ways they could improve. The 37 areas on
the list all present either a financial risk of loss of at
least $1 billion taxpayer dollars--that is a billion with a
``B''--or a risk involving public health or safety, delivery of
essential services to America's national security concerns,
economic growth, privacy, or the rights of citizens. Important
things are at stake here.
Despite GAO's best efforts to highlight problems and
propose solutions, waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal
Government is ever present. GAO has supplied this report to
Congress for more than 30 years. Unfortunately, some programs
have appeared on this list since the beginning. Fortunately,
this Committee has returned its attention and resources to
focus on its core missions: to ensure government is working for
the American people in an efficient manner, to ensure agencies
safeguard taxpayer funds from fraudsters and ineligible
participants, and to hold leaders accountable when they fail to
perform.
This Committee's very first hearing of the 118th Congress,
which included testimony from Comptroller General Dodaro,
focused on the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in COVID relief
programs, leading to billions in waste and improper payments,
with tens of billions of funds going to transnational criminal
organizations instead of their intended recipients. Today, our
Committee will also examine the roughly $250 billion lost to
waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement annually outside of
COVID relief programs. This includes improper payments in the
Medicaid and National Flood Insurance Program, waste due to
outdated cybersecurity measures and a lack of preparation for
future disasters, mismanagement of Department of Defense's
finances and in the Federal prison system. All of these
programs have been highlighted on the High-Risk List.
GAO's work makes clear we need to have more oversight,
tracking, and data collection to determine how taxpayer dollars
are being spent. GAO estimates that just since last Congress'
report, there has already been about $100 billion in Federal
savings because of improvements to areas included on the
previous High-Risk List. And why is that? Because effective
oversight works. It works to expose and prevent waste, fraud,
and abuse, it works to safeguard taxpayer dollars, and it works
for the American people.
We made a commitment in the 118th Congress to restore
accountability not only with this Committee, but the entire
House of Representatives, and that is what we are here for
today. I will look forward to hearing from Comptroller General
Dodaro on the work GAO is doing and how this Committee can
seize opportunities to prevent waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in the Federal Government. And with that, I yield
to the Ranking Member Raskin for his opening statement.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you for calling this very important hearing with the GAO
on its recently released 2023 High-Risk List. For more than 30
years, GAO has released this list at the beginning of each
Congress. The report identifies key areas where we need to
ensure that the Federal Government works effectively for the
American people and not effectively against us. So, the report
has been North Star for government efficiency, illuminating a
path forward for Congress and the executive branch to better
serve the needs and the priorities of American people. I want
to thank Comptroller General Gene Dodaro for testifying before
the Committee today and for his extraordinary 50 years of
exemplary service of the people at GAO. That is a half century
committed to the American people.
I want to echo the Chairman in saying that GAO's
independent, nonpartisan work is critical to the mission of
efficient government, serving the public, and rooting out waste
of taxpayer money, financial fraud, and self-dealing abuses of
power. GAO plays a pivotal role in this process. The List
identifies the areas of Federal operations most in need of
transformation and improvement. Every two years, GAO rates
progress or backsliding from the last report and makes specific
recommendations for executive branch agencies and Congress
where we can make progress. The recommendations save American
taxpayers billions of dollars, improve service to the public,
and strengthen government performance.
Since 2006, the financial benefit of addressing these high-
risk areas has totaled a jaw-dropping $675 billion. Let me
repeat that. Addressing the high-risk areas has provided
taxpayers $675 billion in financial benefits. If Ben Franklin
was right that a penny saved is a penny earned, that is $675
billion earned to the American people, an amount 100 times
more--I observed this morning--more than 100 times more than
Fox is going to have to pay Dominion for what just happened
there. So, investing in our Federal operations in oversight, in
leadership, in practical solutions, and in resources yields
extraordinary concrete benefits to the American people,
including better customer service, a more efficient government
in these billions dollars.
[Chart]
Mr. Raskin. The 2023 list highlights 37 areas across the
Federal Government that are at greatest risk today of waste,
fraud, and mismanagement, and that need broad structural
reform. When we looked at the 2021 High-Risk List, 16 high-risk
areas saw improvements and two were removed from the High-Risk
List entirely. According to GAO, this is the most progress made
by Congress in the government since GAO started issuing the
ratings eight years ago. Progress can be seen in directly
improved services to the public and in the agencies' enhanced
ability to achieve their missions. This is tangible evidence of
the Biden-Harris Administration's and the Democratic Majority's
commitment to work for the American people and deliver
meaningful results over the last Congress.
While we are encouraged by the progress outlined in this
year's report, there is much more work to be done, of course.
Since 2021, one high-risk area regressed and three new problem
areas were added. This is a reminder that we have to do more to
hold the agencies accountable. We hope the majority and our
colleagues on both sides of the aisle will work together to
implement lasting solutions. This means we must ensure
continuing key investments in our operations and implementation
of policy changes. This public philosophy must take precedence
over the suddenly fashionable drive to dismember our country's
critical programs, including the social safety net, healthcare,
science, education, climate, energy, labor, research, and
oversight itself, as outlined in the short-sighted pennywise
and pound foolish debt ceiling proposal.
The so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act, better known as the
Default on Our Debt Act, would make destabilizing and
indiscriminate across-the-board board cuts of an estimated 22
percent to most agency budgets, plunging the government into
uncertainty and triage mode without the resources to continue
making improvements in the high-risk areas. These slash-and-
burn cuts proposed by House Republicans threaten to reverse
dramatic progress made in the high-risk areas and make many of
our problems worse. They would undermine the crucial progress
we made toward addressing the skills gap in the work force,
defund our work to protect the Nation from devastating
cyberattacks, pit safety and efficiency against each other in
our transportation systems, slow down Social Security checks,
and cause significant reductions in the number of people served
by affordable housing programs.
And this is the tip of the iceberg. These cuts would even
eliminate millions of dollars in funding for oversight of
pandemic aid and for the oversight work that the Comptroller
General is here to tell us about today, oversight work that we
all claim to value so much. Members in this hearing room cannot
say that they want the Federal Government to best serve the
American people and then walk over to the Capitol to vote for a
bill that will totally frustrate this goal. One agency official
stated the cuts would ``cause significant damage to national
security, economic competitiveness, American jobs, disaster
preparedness, and the natural environment.''
Instead of implementing widespread cuts that would halt
most of the gains made on high-risk areas between 2021 and
2023, executive branch agencies and Congress need to believe in
the value that comes from a well-functioning Federal
Government, a government that serves everyone. Executive branch
agencies and Congress must commit to addressing hundreds of
open GAO recommendations to bring about the lasting corrective
solutions we need to the remaining 37 high-risk areas.
Persistent and prudent congressional oversight and thoughtful
legislative solutions are essential to achieve greater
progress. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you on
making that happen, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back. I am
pleased to welcome back to the Committee today's witness,
Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who brings more than 49 years
of experience at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and
has served as head of the Agency since 2010. As Comptroller
General, Mr. Dodaro helps oversee the development and issuance
of hundreds of reports and testimonies each year to Congress.
These products have led to hearings and legislation, billions
of dollars in taxpayer savings, and improvements to a wide
range of government programs and services.
He has testified before Congress dozens of times to provide
nonpartisan insights into some of our most pressing Federal
oversight issues. His leadership with GAO has led to billions
in taxpayer savings and crucial evaluations of whether
government programs and services are meeting congressional
intent. Thank you for joining us today, and I look forward to
our discussion this morning.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), Mr. Dodaro, will you and
your staff please stand and raise your right hand?
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative.
We appreciate you all being here and look forward to your
testimony. I recognize Mr. Dodaro to please begin his five-
minute opening statement.
STATEMENT OF GENE L. DODARO
COMPTROLLER GENERAL
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Dodaro. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Raskin, Members of the Committee. I am very pleased to be here
today to talk about our latest high-risk update. The story of
this update is progress, but many pressing serious
consequential problems still need to be addressed.
On the progress front, and I would commend the Congress for
a number of things that they did to contribute to this
progress. First was to provide funding to the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corporation, which is coming off the list. Congress
also provided funding for surface transportation, dealt with
some fiscal relief to the Postal Service over this past year,
passed a number of provisions to build better climate
resilience up front, and this dealt with many of the issues,
and it contributed greatly to the progress as well as efforts
by the executive branch.
Now, there is progress in 16 areas, two of which we are
going to take off the list. One is the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation. When we were here last time, the Multi-employer
Program was due to be insolvent in 2026, and due to the action
that the Congress has taken now and some improvements that have
helped in the Single-Employer Program, the PBGC now rates the
risk of insolvency very low for the next 15 years, so we are
going to take that off the list. Now, just because it is off
the list doesn't mean it is out of sight. We are going to
continue to monitor it because it doesn't solve the long-term
problems in that program.
We are also taking the 2020 Census off the list because of
improvements made. This was the first census with an internet
response. They were able to contain the cost growth in annual
censuses from the pattern that had emerged earlier. They
delivered it during a pandemic. There are still a lot of issues
in terms of the quality of the count that need to be worked on
going forward. Again, we will keep an eye on this area as
planning for the 2030 Census ramps up going forward.
Now, there are a number of areas still on the list that I
think are very significant that I want to point out to you. No.
1 is cybersecurity, and I first added that to the High-Risk
List across government in 1997. I still don't think the Federal
Government is operating at a pace commensurate with the
evolving grave threat in the cybersecurity area, not only to
protect its own assets but critical infrastructure protection
throughout the United States. The Administration has just put
out a national strategy that we have been calling for, but it
does not yet have a detailed implementation plan with
milestones, resources, clear roles and responsibilities, so we
are going to need to be continue to focus on this area. We have
850 open recommendations yet in the cybersecurity area that we
have made, and so that area is very important, I believe, for
Congress to continue to focus on.
The second is drug misuse. We added this area a while back,
you know, very concerned in the last 12-month period that the
CDC has been measuring, there have been over 107,000 overdose
deaths. This is the most in the history of the United States.
It has been over 100,000 now for the past two or three years.
The trend is not good. We have called for a national strategy
with coordination not only among Federal agencies, but between
Federal, state, and local governments, the healthcare sector,
the law enforcement sector. Just this month, earlier, the
Office of National Drug Control Policy put out an emerging
threat alert because of the combination of fentanyl with
xylazine, which is a horse tranquilizer, is becoming very
problematic in this area and leading to additional
complications. So, they have to put out a report now within 90
days on how they are going to deal with this next evolving
issue in this area.
Last, I will point out the area of oversight of medical
products and safety. You know, most of our products now come
from foreign sources. We have encouraged FDA to have more
oversight over that area, and I think we still are at risk of
drug shortages. And the medical supply chain issue needs to be
dealt with much more effectively than it has been dealt with
before, and we have some suggestions on how that could be done.
And so, I am happy to talk about any of these high-risk
areas in the question-and-answer section. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today to discuss these very important
issues with all of you and hopefully help set the oversight
table going forward.
Chairman Comer. Thank you very much. We look forward to a
very substantive question and answer session, and I will begin.
Mr. Comptroller General, what is the total amount of
improper payments that GAO estimates were made last year across
the Federal Government?
Mr. Dodaro. Last year, across Federal Government, the
cumulative total of the estimates made by the agencies was $247
billion.
Chairman Comer. Hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. Mr. Chairman, if I might add, that estimate is
not complete. There are a number of programs where estimates
were not made, like the Pandemic Unemployment Insurance
Program. Since 2003, these estimates have totaled $2.3
trillion. This is a trend that was a problem before the
pandemic.
Chairman Comer. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. It got worse during the pandemic.
Chairman Comer. Two-point-three trillion. So, since 2000,
it would be roughly $2-and-a-half trillion?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Chairman Comer. Two-and-a-half trillion dollars.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Chairman Comer. What are the worst programs for improper
payments over that time?
Mr. Dodaro. Over that time, yes, the Medicaid Program has
the highest total for the last couple years: $98 billion in
2021, $80 billion in 2022. Medicare Program is about $47, $49
billion over the last two years. The Unemployment Insurance
Program, it is $78 billion in 2021, about $19 billion in 2022.
Chairman Comer. Geez.
Mr. Dodaro. The Earned Income Tax Credit----
Chairman Comer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Has been about $18 billion a year.
And then in 2022, which is the first year the Emergency Loan
Programs----
Chairman Comer. Oh.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Of SBA were a $36 billion
estimate. We encouraged them to make that estimate. They didn't
make it in 2021, but they made it in 2022.
Chairman Comer. That is sickening. Last Congress, we heard
from you about the need for more oversight over pandemic relief
funds. As you testified at the 2021 high-risk hearing, ``When
you are spending close to a trillion dollars, you also need
good accountability and transparency,'' and guess what Congress
did with that important advice that you gave this Committee? It
rushed out another $1.9 trillion in alleged pandemic relief,
but Congress didn't stop there. Congress also spent another $2
trillion of taxpayer dollars in Green New Deal spending in the
infrastructure package, CHIPS and Science Act, and our favorite
misnomer, the Inflation Reduction Act, which I am not going to
get into that. As with any massive spending bill, oversight is
critical to ensure that funds are being used toward their
intended purpose.
What has GAO learned about the Federal Government's ability
to conduct internal oversight since your last high-risk update,
and is the Federal Government truly equipped to oversee the
disbursement of trillions of dollars under such a short
timeframe?
Mr. Dodaro. There are additional areas that I have
recommended both to the Congress and the executive branch that
need to be dealt with. First of all, the agencies need to
implement better fraud reduction measures. That is the only
real solution to this problem. Really, it is difficult to catch
all the people that have committed the fraud afterwards and
then even more difficult to collect the money. I worked with
the Congress back in 2016. We passed this Fraud Reduction Act,
and the agencies were slow to implement it, and so they weren't
very prepared for additional funding.
Chairman Comer. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. You need better internal controls, better
management, more aggressive oversight. And I have about a dozen
legislative proposals that----
Chairman Comer. Right.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. I have to help deal with this
issue going forward.
Chairman Comer. I look forward to receiving that, so thank
you for your insight. As I mentioned earlier in my opening
statement, many of the issues we face today began long before
the pandemic. The 2023 High-Risk Report served, once again, as
an alarming reminder of the extent of the improper payment
issues facing Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, Medicare
improperly paid roughly $47 billion and Medicaid improperly
paid nearly $81 billion. Why do these programs have such
massive issues with improper payments?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, there are a lot of factors that
contribute to it. In Medicare, what needs to be done is there
needs to be more timely measures of the contract audits for
Medicare Advantage, which is about half of the spending in
Medicare now.
Chairman Comer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. CMS still hasn't released the audits from the
2011 to 2015 area, so we are way behind in auditing the managed
care plans.
Chairman Comer. That is unacceptable, by the way, but yes.
Mr. Dodaro. I agree.
Chairman Comer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. There also needs to be legislation to allow for
recovery auditors, which have proven through a pilot to do some
pre-audits ahead of time. I have suggested more pre-
authorizations, which have been studied and don't hold up
benefits but provide more program integrity. In Medicaid, I
don't believe the estimates, as bad as they, are complete. I
don't think we have a good estimate yet of the managed care
portion of the Medicaid Program.
Chairman Comer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. There is a big problem with provider screening
and beneficiary eligibility determinations. This was paused
during the pandemic, so when once that resumes, which starts
this month, I expect those improper payment estimates to
increase. But that needs to be dealt with, and I think the
state auditors need to be involved more in providing oversight
over that program, which is administered at the state level.
Chairman Comer. Well, thank you. We look forward to your
legislative advice and look forward to this hearing. With that,
I yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Yes, I get complaints
all the time from constituents about the Medicare Advantage
plans and what is taking place there, so that might be worthy
of a hearing of our own, Mr. Chairman, and the fraud that is
taking place there. Mr. Dodaro, one of the criteria that you
consider before you remove an area from the High-Risk List is
agency capacity, specifically whether or not the agency has the
people and the resources needed to sufficiently address and
correct the risk. Why is agency capacity such a critical
factor?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, first of all, 22 of the high-risk areas
of the 37 are on the list because of critical skill gaps,
either not having enough people or the right kind of people to
implement those programs effectively. So, you need the right
people.
Mr. Raskin. You are talking about people on the staff of
the agency.
Mr. Dodaro. Absolutely.
Mr. Raskin. Under the American Rescue Plan and the other
coronavirus relief auths, GAO got $107 million to bolster
oversight of the funds and programs authorized by these
packages, some of the stuff you were just talking about with
the Chairman. My understanding is that the GOP's Default on Our
Debt Act, however, would claw back a lot of that oversight
funding, money that had been provided before to the GAO. How
much money would be taken back?
Mr. Dodaro. I would have to provide a detailed answer for
the record.
Mr. Dodaro. I think we have perhaps around $20 million of
that left of the $107, you know----
Mr. Raskin. Right, but what had been reported to me was $29
million, but I wanted to check.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, that is about right.
Mr. Raskin. OK.
Mr. Dodaro. That is right.
Mr. Raskin. Now, that is money that you intended to use on
essential oversight of COVID-19 relief, including examining the
contents and management of the Strategic National Stockpile,
evaluating agency IT preparedness and response during COVID-19,
assessing airline service disruptions and their causes, and
investigating, significantly, worker health and safety
conditions in the meat and poultry processing industry. This
funding will help us understand what happened during COVID and
how to better prepare for future emergencies. On top of that,
these proposed dramatic across-the-board budget cuts would
undermine GAO's ability to oversee the 37 high-risk areas that
we are here to talk about today.
So, last month you testified before the Committee on
Appropriations and stated that, ``Congress is basically out-
resourced against the executive branch, and unless you have
strong oversight and a strong GAO, it is hard to provide
effective oversight.'' At that same hearing, you described the
severe challenges that you experienced after the last drastic
budget cuts took place under the 2011 Budget Control Act. So,
how would these new budget cuts affect GAO's ability to conduct
oversight that we are all counting on?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, potentially the cuts collectively
that have been discussed would have a devastating effect on our
ability to support the Congress. Under some of the proposals
that have been put forward, we would either have to lay off
about 570 people, or we would have to not replace people who
left due to attrition, and furlough GAO people. We would have
to shut GAO down for about a month and a half and for providing
services. So, you know, it would definitely have an impact on
us and our ability to serve the Congress.
Mr. Raskin. I mean, is that cutting off our nose to spite
our face?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, we provided $145 back for every dollar
invested in us over the last years--five--and so, we provide a
very good return on investment. And to get the returns, you got
to continue to make investments. It would be like pulling your
money out of a CD and still expecting interest.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. So, I just want to get our colleagues to
focus on this point. Like, there is the level of rhetoric which
a lot of politics in Washington takes place, and then there is
the level of real investment in work to make things happen. And
this reckless Default on Our Debt Act would gut funding not
just for veterans and housing and nutrition and climate work
and so on, but for important oversight work which saves
billions of dollars to our people and making sure that the
government is working for people. And that is just
unacceptable, and it is not going to be productive. So, if our
colleagues really want to make government more effective and
more efficient, if they really want to improve the programs and
the services that we provide to our constituents, let's not
undermine key oversight entities, like the GAO that provide
accountability and transparency to Congress and to the American
people. That really is cutting off our nose to spite our face.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gosar from Arizona
for five minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Comptroller General, it is good seeing you
again, absolutely. U.S. involvement in Ukraine has been an epic
disaster, resulting in hundreds of thousands of military and
civilian casualties. Each day without peace is another day that
jeopardizes the fragile security the world has enjoyed for
decades, free from the devastation of nuclear weapons, and our
blank check for this war is coming at a cost of our own
military readiness.
At our current pace, it will take five years to restock our
Javelin missiles, 13 for Stinger missiles. Every one month, six
years' worth of our 155-millimeter artillery rounds are
expended or disappear. The horrible decision to give American
taxpayer dollars to a corrupt regime is not the only reason why
the U.S. military readiness is suffering. The recent GAO report
has found four critical areas where our DOD is at risk of
losing over $1 billion due to mismanagement, waste, and fraud.
Mr. Dodaro, let me quote a line from your report: ``The
Department of Defense needs to improve oversight of its weapons
systems and to make better-informed investment decisions to
ensure the timely delivery of critical capabilities to the
warfighter.'' Mr. Dodaro, given the fact that the U.S.
munitions stockpiles have been significantly depleted, how has
the decision to meddle in this foreign war on the other side of
the globe affected the military readiness of the U.S.?
Mr. Dodaro. One of the things that we have been asked to do
is provide oversight by the Congress on what is happening to
the funding that we provided. And one of the things we are
going to look at is that very issue, particularly in terms of
replenishing the stockpile. I will ask Mr. DiNapoli, who is our
expert in that area, to elaborate a bit, Congressman. It is a
good question.
Mr. DiNapoli. Many thanks for the question. It is good. As
Gene mentioned, we are kicking off a series of reviews to take
a look at what type of weapons and assistance has been provided
to Ukraine. As of last month, $39 billion, you know, where 75
different types of goods and services have been provided to the
Ukrainian Armed Forces. As part of that, we are going to look
at the replenishment of those, how the decisions were made what
to replenish, how to replenish it, what is the cost of that
replenishment, and the impact on sustainment and readiness.
Mr. Dodaro. And also, Congressman--excuse me--we also have
work ongoing looking at the readiness issue. We have been
focused on that a number of years now.
Mr. Gosar. Got you. So now, in your discussions with the
DOD, have you noticed a special push to restock ammunition and
weapons?
Mr. DiNapoli. Yes. In our early observations, in our
discussions, they are definitely focusing on making sure that
the supplies of critical things needed by our armed forces are
available when needed.
Mr. Gosar. From your vantage point, are they at acceptable
rates?
Mr. DiNapoli. So, we are continuing that analysis. I can't
give you an answer right now, but we hope to have that report
out to you by the end of the year.
Mr. Gosar. Love to have that. Now, there have been over
107,000 drug overdose deaths in Fiscal Year 2022. Much of this
death is due to policies that perpetrate open borders. Has GAO
issued recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security
on steps that the Agency could take to deter illegal border
crossing and to more easily and effectively return illegal
aliens to their country of origin?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, we have. I am going to ask Charles Johnson
to come to the table, our expert in that area, or Rebecca.
Rebecca Gambler. I am sorry.
Ms. Gambler. Good morning. Thank you for the question,
Congressman. Yes, GAO has made a number of recommendations to
DHS over many years related to its efforts to secure the
border. Those recommendations include things related to better
oversight and monitoring of border security efforts, better
performance measures so that we can assess what we are getting
out of investments made in border security. And we are
continuing to follow up on those recommendations over time.
Mr. Gosar. So, can you commit to a report by GAO on policy
recommendations Homeland Security should take to stem the tide
of illegal immigration?
Ms. Gambler. We would be happy to work with your office on
specific areas of interest that you are interested in GAO
taking a look at and reporting on.
Mr. Gosar. Got you. Now my last question. Many prisoners
are being held, allegedly committed crimes on January 6 of
2021. They are being held in deplorable conditions in two D.C.
jails. There are reports that the prisoners are prevented from
seeking counsel, had their freedom of religion violated, been
denied medical care, refused access to exculpatory evidence,
and been forbidden basic hygiene products to keep themselves
groomed and washed. Are you aware of these violations of
prisoners' rights?
Mr. Dodaro. I am going to ask Charles Johnson. He is our
expert in this area of the Bureau of Prisons. Go ahead,
Charles.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Congressman, we have not
specifically looked at that particular issue. We have been
doing some studies looking at the Federal management of the
prison system, which, you know, was included in the High-Risk
report this year as a new addition. We are aware of some
mistreatment of some of the incarcerated individuals in certain
facilities. The particular one in the District, we have not
looked at, but we would be happy to take a further look at
that.
Mr. Gosar. Would you commit to a report to Congress on that
very subject?
Mr. Johnson. We would definitely look at it and reach out
to your staff to have a further conversation on that issue.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you very much. Good seeing you again.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, good seeing you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Norton from
Washington, DC, for five minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the 117th Congress,
Democrats led the way with historic legislation to rebuild and
modernize our Nation's crumbling infrastructure. Congress
passed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to
rebuild roads and bridges in communities around the country,
improve climate resilience, cleanup pollution, and a lot more.
During the first year of implementation, the Biden-Harris
Administration is already delivering results. Over $185 billion
in funding has been committed to more than 6,900 projects
across the country.
So, Mr. Dodaro, can you give a couple of examples of how
the bipartisan Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act
contributed to significant progress across several high-risk
areas?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, absolutely, and I have called up David
Trimble, our infrastructure expert. But first, I would say, No.
1, surface transportation and providing stable funding over the
long term has been on the High-Risk List since 2007, and so the
Infrastructure Act provided enough money to provide stable
funding at least up until 2028. After that, there is going to
be a funding gap again, which is why we didn't take it off the
list. Also, the Inflation Reduction Act did provide a number of
programs and grants to build climate resilience in up front.
And so, those are two ways that they make contributions to
those areas. I would ask Mr. Trimble if he has any additional
examples.
Mr. Trimble. I think those are the two examples I would
cite as well, but we are happy to meet with your staff to give
you other examples we have seen in our audits. We have got a
number of reviews ongoing, tracking the funding across a whole
host of areas, so would be happy to meet and go over those more
detail if that would be useful.
Ms. Norton. I would appreciate that. Mr. Dodaro, what
concrete benefits did this progress deliver for the American
people?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I think, you know, the infrastructure, by
our accounts and by many experts in that area, was desperately
in need of repair, you know, particularly for surface
transportation, and bridges, and other things. So, I think you
know these projects take a long time to get developed, and
there needs to be, you know, more work done in order for
everybody to realize fully the benefits that are in place, but
the funding needed to get out there and get started in those
areas. I think climate resilience will yield a number of
benefits both to individuals as well as the Federal Government.
Also, the expansion of broadband capabilities throughout the
country, particularly in rural areas, will help people realize
the benefits of connectivity in those areas.
And so, you know, we have pointed out, though, that we need
to look at the workforce to make sure there is an adequate
workforce to deliver these broadband capabilities throughout
the country. So, we looked in the telecommunications area, and,
as David mentioned, we have about 30 or 40 different
requirements for studies on the Infrastructure Act, so we will
be continuing to put those out. Also, we have already issued
one report, for example, on crash dummies and saying that, you
know, the dummies, while they represent, you know, men in
particular, they don't really represent women or children. And
so, there is, you know, more study needed, and changes need to
be made so that the full range of occupants, of course, can be
made safe.
Ms. Norton. For the high-risk area of funding the Nation's
surface transportation system, GAO did not provide a rating for
executive branch agencies' progress because ``Addressing the
identified issues will primarily involve congressional action.
So, Mr. Dodaro, can you explain what funding the Nation's
surface transportation system is about and why we should take
heed that this area is on the High-Risk List?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, the national gas tax hasn't been
raised since 1993, so the model that was set up by the Congress
is to have occupants and users of the roads and highways pay
for the funding repairs. And that model, with the fact that the
gas tax hasn't been raised, more people, fuel efficient
vehicles, now electronic vehicles, that model is not going to
be sufficient, has not been sufficient, in the future. Congress
has supplemented the amount of money going into the Highway
Trust Fund by making general appropriations available, and now
the Infrastructure Act covers that for at least the next five
years, but the long-term financing really is not there.
Now, we are looking at some of the efforts to look at the
mileage driven and to perhaps have a different model of people
paying a certain amount of money for the miles that they drive
every year. There are some pilots going on throughout the
states. We are not sure whether it is going to be scalable yet.
That is one of our recommendations to the Department of
Transportation.
Ms. Norton. Sir, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Dr. Foxx from North
Carolina for five minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro,
for being here. This year, the unemployment insurance, UI
system, was added to the High-Risk List. In the report, you
mentioned that fraud risks to the UI Program need to be
addressed. As I understand it, the current statute of
limitations for criminal and civil penalties for COVID, UI
fraud, and overpayment is only five years. Is that correct?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct.
Ms. Foxx. OK. Legislation, such as the Protecting Taxpayers
and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, would extend the statute
of limitations for criminal charges and civil actions for
prosecuting fraud to 10 years. What would the impact of that
change be, and how much more could we expect the government to
be able to recover as a result of this change?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I think that that is a good change.
Congress has already extended the statute of limitations for
the SBA emergency loan programs from 5 to 10, or maybe 10
years, and I think it makes sense to do it for an unemployment
insurance area. You know, we estimated at the low end of the
fraud and unemployment insurance, it was $60 billion in fraud.
We are working on a high-end estimate now which we will have
later this summer, so there is a lot of money yet that hasn't
been recovered. Now, how much can be recovered? Quite frankly,
it is going to be modest, but I think there is also a benefit
from a deterrence effect about----
Ms. Foxx. Sure.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Punishing people who have
committed the fraud----
Ms. Foxx. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. As well as trying to get back as
much money as possible.
Ms. Foxx. Absolutely. As you know, the United States Postal
Service has been on the GAO High-Risk List since 2009. However,
since the last High-Risk List was published in 2021, this
Committee came together to create the Postal Service Reform
Act, which was signed into law. This law greatly reduced the
Postal Service's unfunded liabilities for retiree health
benefits. Along with this ``relief,'' the Postal Service is
charged with implementing the Postmaster General's 10-year
plan, which we believe will lead the Postal Service toward
self-sufficiency. Do you have any recommendations for Congress
to help ensure the Postal Service achieves self-sufficiency?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, first of all, Congress did provide
substantive relief to the Postal Service, but it didn't change
the long-term business model, and the Postal Service is
continuing to lose money, even with these relief efforts. So,
the 10-year plan being executed by the Postal Service will be
helpful, but, ultimately, I think the Congress is going to have
to decide what level of service that it wants the American
people to have and how to provide a stable funding arrangement,
and whether or not they want the Postal Service to be self-
supporting or not.
Ms. Foxx. Let me ask you a follow-up----
Mr. Dodaro. Sure.
Ms. Foxx [continuing]. Before you continue that.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Ms. Foxx. The High-Risk List mentions that USPS should
continue to take actions under its own authority to enhance its
financial viability while still meeting its mission to provide
universal postal service. What actions under its own authority
can USPS take to enhance its financial viability?
Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Mr. Trimble, our expert, to give you
an answer there.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Mr. Trimble. Yes. Currently, we have an ongoing review of
the USPS' new 10-year strategic plan and the number of projects
they have in there to address their costs, and also service and
reorganization efforts they have under way to address their
cost structures. So, I think, really, it is going to be to
execute against that plan, and that is something we will be
monitoring in our ongoing review.
Ms. Foxx. Great. Mr. Dodaro, again, one of the key points
made in the High-Risk List is at the Office of Management and
Budget. OMB is critical to addressing high-risk areas because
it can lead and support agencies. How can Congress help OMB
conduct more meaningful oversight to help improve high-risk
programs, and along with that, I will note that there is no
Inspector General there. How would having an Inspector General
help this situation?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, first, the first thing Congress could do
is hopefully work with the Administration and get a confirmed
Controller in that position. There hasn't been a confirmed
Controller in that position for at least seven years now, and
that is a problem in terms of us working with them to not only
deal with high-risk areas but also improper payments and also
all financial management issues. So, I think there needs to be
additional leadership responsibilities there.
I have been very pleased with the cooperation from the
Deputy for Management, Jason Miller. We have had tripartite
meetings between GAO, OMB, and agencies on the list. OMB is
always looking for resources just like everybody else, so
Congress should look carefully at those issues. Inspector
Generals are an important part of oversight over the Federal
Government, and I would, you know, think that there is some
merit to considering that, although OMB is in the Executive
Office of the President. So, we would have to look at it in a
broader aspect than just OMB because OMB is a very small
entity.
Ms. Foxx. Sure. Well, I have one more question, but I will
submit it, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
Mr. Dodaro. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Ocasio-Cortez from
New York for five minutes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to
yield 30 seconds to the Ranking Member Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Congress
has committed $24 billion in security assistance to Ukraine in
their war of self-defense against the brutal invasion by
Russia, and to ensure the proper use of that funding, Congress
and the Administration established robust oversight structures
to detect fraud and abuse. And that included additional funding
for the IGs of DOD, the State Department, and the United States
Agency for International Development.
And recent testimony from Administration officials confirm
that these robust oversight structures are working. On February
28, the House Armed Services Committee, during which DOD's
undersecretary of defense for policy testified the Agency has
provided Ukrainians with supplies to track the systems the U.S.
has provided, including scanners and software, and that they
have not seen any evidence of diversion. So, I just want to say
that you have helped us get ready for that. I yield back.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank
you to the Ranking Member. Now, I want to dive into a little
bit of what we are looking at today. This week Republicans
introduced their legislation to bring the U.S. Government into
default. That is what is happening, and that would introduce
de-stabling and a profoundly unprecedented process that would
initiate across-the-board cuts of an estimated 22 percent to
most agency budgets, including cuts to lifesaving medical care,
Social Security, student debt, SNAP benefits. And in all of
that, my colleagues seem to forget another way to solve our
impending fiscal crisis.
This isn't just about continued cuts to the poor and to the
working class in our central services, but we can raise
revenue. In fact, when tax cuts in 2017 were passed by the
other side of the aisle, we see wonderful tax cuts for yacht
owners and private jets. But in order to balance our budget,
now we are talking about cuts to SNAP, to food out of babies'
mouths instead of actually re-examining the inequities within
our tax system. Let us look into the decreasing IRS' revenue
that has contributed to a loss in revenue from taxing the
wealthiest Americans.
Mr. Dodaro, how much have appropriations for IRS
enforcement activities decreased since 2010?
Mr. Dodaro. I am going to ask Jay McTigue, our expert in
IRS, to respond.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
Mr. McTigue. Thank you, Congresswoman. The appropriations
for IRS have declined considerably since 2010, roughly 20
percent when adjusted for inflation, and roughly the same
amount when looking at enforcement in particular.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And we have seen, according to your May
2022 report, Mr. Dodaro, GAO, you reported a decrease in audit
rates of individual tax returns, correct?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And in that same report, you state that
the tax community has also raised concerns about whether the
IRS is selecting taxpayers for audit in an equitable manner.
Can you explain the concern with respect to the equity of
audits and, particularly, any drops in audit rates for incomes
making over $500,000 a year?
Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Mr. McTigue to respond.
Mr. McTigue. Again, thank you, Congresswoman. In the report
that you reference, we did point out that audit rates have
declined by about a third since 2010 across the board, but they
have declined more dramatically for higher-income individuals,
and the reason behind that has really been a resource and a
capacity issue. Auditing high-income, high-wealth individuals,
partnerships, corporations require a lot of expertise, both
human capital as well as information technology and analytics,
whereas auditing lower-income individuals is much more
straightforward. The IRS has a lot of information from third
parties on income, such as wages----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes.
Mr. McTigue [continuing]. And less information on other
types of income. So, there is a wide disparity there.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. I appreciate that, and to
your note, auditing the rich is an enormously complex process
that takes a lot of manpower, and the cuts to IRS enforcement
are strategic, and they have resulted in a loss of revenue. Is
that correct?
Mr. McTigue. IRS has been unable over the past decade to
backfill, you know, very highly skilled individuals that have
retired.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. I apologize. I just have to
reclaim because I don't have time, but what we see here, and I
would like unanimous consent to submit the report from the
GAO----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez [continuing]. That there was an 87-
percent decline in audits for taxpayers making between $500,000
and $5 million. And according to the GAO, we have seen that new
funding for the IRS that we recently put in the Inflation
Reduction Act has increased those revenues over 10 years.
So, instead of looking at climate and instead of looking at
cuts to healthcare, we should examine why our colleagues and
the Republican Party is so invested in protecting the
wealthiest people in this society and would rather attack
healthcare and services for our veterans than repealing tax
cuts for yacht owners and private jets. And with that, I yield
my time.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Grothman from
Wisconsin for five minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Yes. I would like to focus a little bit on
the Department of Defense, arguably the most important
department because our freedom depends upon them doing a good,
efficient job. First of all, the Department of Defense
financial management and contractor management have been on the
GAO's High-Risk List since the early 90's. Why is that?
Mr. Dodaro. The financial management part, and I will ask
Mr. DiNapoli to talk about contract management, but on a
financial management, they have been unable to pass the test of
an independent audit. They are the only major Federal agencies
that have been unable to pass the test of an audit. Their
financial systems and controls are not sufficient. There have
been hundreds of identified weaknesses by people who are doing
the audits.
Now, for many years, the Department didn't try to do a
financial audit, but in the last five years they have, and they
are making some good progress in that area. They are finding
good benefits from the financial audits. They are finding
helicopters they didn't know they had on the books. They are
finding lots of supplies. They are saving some money not
reordering things that they already have. So, there are some
benefits to it, but the main reason is they have been able to
pass a test of an independent audit, financial audit.
Mr. Grothman. Why compared to other agencies is the
Department of Defense so much worse? Is it arrogance? Is it
ignorance? What would you attribute it to?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, a part of it is scale. For a number of
years, it was lack of effort, to be honest with you. I mean,
the requirement has been in place since 1996. For about a
decade or so, they really just certified they were unauditable
and didn't do it. More recently, there has been commitment in
the last two administrations, and I have been very pleased
about it, and they are starting to take it seriously. They
recognize they need it in order to manage more efficiently and
effectively. But it is big agencies, and there is----
Mr. Grothman. OK.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Not a lot of standardization
across the Department. So, there are a lot of decentralized
efforts, and, therefore, the systems are unable to exchange
information properly.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Thanks. In November 2022, Defense failed
its fifth consecutive audit. It was unable to account for 61
percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets. What are the reasons
why the DOD cannot produce a clean audit?
Mr. Dodaro. A couple reasons. One, their financial systems
are not reliable in a number of cases. Second, they do not have
good internal controls over their property, over their
inventory systems, and that is a problem. They also do not have
the full type of skills in their work force that they need in
those areas. And so, it is a myriad of issues.
Mr. Grothman. Could you elaborate on they don't have the
skills? How is this possible they don't have the skills?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, there are not enough people. I mean, for
over 200 years, the Federal Government operated without any
financial statements or independent financial audits. We
started in the 90's, so this wasn't a big priority in those
areas. And then for a number of years, the Department didn't
think they needed to do this, and so they didn't build the
capacity that they need in those areas. Most of the expertise
in financial management of Federal Government has been in the
budget area, not in preparing financial statements and auditing
where they have the systems people necessary to produce those
statements. So, they are trying and are making improvements,
but I still think they need additional skills to be able to do
this.
Mr. Grothman. OK, and we will jump ahead here. What is the
dollar figure for waste the GAO has identified at the Pentagon,
and this number will include the GAO alone and not include the
Department of Defense Inspector General's numbers.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Yes. We are working on a figure now for
government-wide waste. So far, the only figure we have come up
with has been for the Unemployment Insurance Program, which is
over $60 billion at the low end of the range.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Department of Defense last estimated that
in 2014, contractors were in possession of $220 billion in
government-furnished property, but GAO says that number is
significantly understated. Why does GAO believe that?
Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Mr. DiNapoli to respond.
Mr. DiNapoli. Thank you for the question. It is a lot about
financial, similar to what Gene mentioned with regard to
financial management, also occur in the property management
system. So, having the proper records, having the information
technology systems to govern that process, and then having the
folks to do the proper oversight of those, all combine to
having information about the amount of government property in
contractors' hands by being excessively low.
Mr. Grothman. OK. I will give you a little different
question. They always say generals are fighting the last war.
Mr. DiNapoli. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Grothman. And I look at stuff like aircraft carriers,
which when they have war games, get sunk right away. Do you
guys have any comments on the Department of Defense--or maybe
even I shouldn't say Department of Defense--our Appropriations
Committee and Armed Service funding weaponry that may not be up
to snuff or wouldn't last very long in a 21st century war?
Mr. DiNapoli. So, thank you for that question, and that is
another high-risk area of our weapons systems work, which has
also been on the High-Risk List since 1990. And what we have
continually found through the past 30 years is the Department
of Defense generally buys weapons systems in a manner that
results in cost overruns and schedule delays, and often doesn't
provide the warfighters what they need when they need it.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. I think our Department
of Defense and, quite frankly, some people in this building are
a little bit embarrassing as far as protecting our country, but
thank you for letting me go a little over.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Stansbury from New
Mexico for five minutes.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
welcome Mr. Dodaro. It is wonderful to have you here today, and
thank you to all the staff who are joining us.
You know, Mr. Chairman, I just want to take a moment to say
thank you for having this hearing. This is exactly the kind of
hearing that this Committee should be having is actual
oversight and the fiscal responsibilities of the Federal
Government. And I am particularly grateful to have all of you
here and to have this discussion. As a former Senate Committee
employee and a former examiner at OMB, I am very familiar with
your work and have actually worked with a number of you over
the years, so it is great to have you here today.
I want to start out by saying as the Representative for New
Mexico's 1st Congressional District, many of the items that are
on the High-Risk List for this year are items that, of course,
New Mexicans experience every single day. Of the programs and
items that are listed under high risk, issues around tribal
communities and their access to healthcare, funding for the
Bureau of Indian Education, issues around access to
disabilities programs through Medicaid and through the VA
system, and, of course, course many of the issues around
military spending and the other issues that have been discussed
this morning. So, I want to dive in on some of these issues
here.
But I do want to take a moment to amplify on some of the
comments that were made earlier, and that it is particularly
peculiar to be having this hearing this week as we learned just
this morning, in the wee hours of the night last night the GOP
and the Rules Committee dropped their version of the debt
ceiling negotiation, which is really a ransom note for many of
the programs that we are talking about that are covered under
this report. In fact, in the name of balancing the debt
ceiling, the GOP is proposing to cut for 10 years Federal
programs across the board.
And in the GAO's High-Risk Report, it is acknowledged over
and over again across the hundreds of pages of this report that
part of why we made progress on the High-Risk List is because
we have been making investments, and particularly,
congressional investments, in these programs. And, in
particular, I want to highlight those investments in climate
change since one of the proposals in the GOP's proposal this
week is to gut the Inflation Reduction Act as well as other
programs.
You know, in a 2019 report that the GAO published, it was
estimated that by 2040, that climate would cost the United
States $315 billion a year, and the GAO said in this report
that for every single dollar that we spent on climate change as
the Federal Government, it would save the Federal Government
$11. That is an 11-to-1 investment. So, when we hear arguments
like we have this morning, that investments in climate action
are a waste of taxpayer dollars, they are literally saving
taxpayer dollars by ensuring that we are mitigating financial
and fiscal risk for the Federal Government down the road.
And, in fact, the report that you have issued actually
states that. In fact, I want to take a direct quote from the
report. It says that, ``congressional action has helped to
improve this high-risk area,'' and then goes on to talk about
the ways in which the Infrastructure Bill and presumably the
Inflation Reduction Act are actually going to help mitigate
fiscal risk to the government. So, I really wanted to amplify
that this ransom note that the GOP has issued this week on
gutting these vital social programs, climate programs, are
really going to undermine the fiscal responsibility of the
Federal Government.
But I do want to allow the opportunity for you to share
some of the findings of the report, especially around climate
change. I know there were five key areas that were in need of
improvement, particularly around government-wide planning and
technical assistance to our communities, is something that I
work on every day. I have a number of bills that I am working
on. And so, Mr. Dodaro, could you and the staff please expand
on some of the key things that we can do to address our fiscal
responsibilities around climate change?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Gaffigan to do
these. He is our expert in the area, but we have got some good
ideas.
Ms. Stansbury. Great.
Mr. Gaffigan. Yes. I mean, if you look at our high-risk
designation on climate, it is about the fiscal exposures, so
you are spot on in terms of highlighting that. And the Federal
Government can provide a lot of incentives to build resilience
in and save those dollars that you are talking about. It can
also be an integrator for all the stakeholders who are involved
in that and also provide key information. Those are three sort
of key areas of resilience that we can build in. But I think
the fiscal exposure is a huge issue, and it is why we put it on
the High-Risk List in 2013.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, I think a couple specifics. One would be
to give better climate information to state and local officials
so that they can make better planning decisions, also to work
with them to build the better building codes in. You know, the
Federal Government does not control building codes, and so it
is very important that the Federal Government try to provide
information to get those building codes up to speed. And also,
the Federal Government needs to set priorities. There is a lot
to do here, and we need priorities, you know. That would help
us to make the most optimal investments.
Ms. Stansbury. Absolutely. Well, thank you, and we really
appreciate your work on this issue. And as I said, this is a
significant investment in the future of this country and
mitigating financial risk to our country's fiscal health but
also to ensuring that our communities have a livable planet,
and so we appreciate your work highlighting that. And with
that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Palmer from
Alabama for five minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dodaro, good to
see you again. You and I have done a lot of work on some key
issues, particularly in the high-risk area, and I just want to
know, it has been very frustrating the lack of response in some
cases. And I just want to know if there are some common themes
or patterns that you have noticed across high-risk areas when
compiling the List in recent years.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. One thing is the programs that rely upon
state and local administrations are among the most difficult to
deal with this. This will be Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance
Program, because we allow the states to design their own
programs within certain parameters, so it is very difficult.
And a lot of Federal agencies have a, you know, a little bit of
a softer posture in terms of oversight when there are a lot of
responsibilities delegated to state and local government, but
you really need Federal leadership in a more aggressive manner.
So, that is No. 1.
No. 2 is I think there needs to be more resources brought
to bear and more disciplined management of Federal programs and
activities on spending in normal programs, but on emergencies,
which we have had and will continue to have, and that is the
basis for the 10 legislative suggestions I put before the
Congress.
Mr. Palmer. Well, in regard to the emergency, it raises the
question about the government's response to the COVID-19
pandemic. Has that worsened our ability to manage vulnerable
funds? And you mentioned one of them, the unemployment
insurance fraud that took place on a massive scale.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. The pandemic exposed fundamental
management weaknesses that the Federal Government has in the
payment process in normal times.
Mr. Palmer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. One is the emphasis has been on pay and chase
in the fraud area rather than preventing fraud in the first
place. I have tried to change that working with the Congress
and the agencies. We are nowhere near where we need to be in
preventing fraud in the first place.
Mr. Palmer. Well, that is some of the stuff that you and I
have worked on over the years is how do we incentivize Federal
agencies to prevent the improper payments that I think you are
really talking about right now, the pay and chase. And I think
one of the that GAO pointed out was that so much of that is
just failure to verify eligibility on things----
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Palmer [continuing]. You know, poor paperwork, you
know, just administrative errors, but also antiquated data
systems.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Palmer. And I am still interested in pursuing the way
to incentivize agencies rather than punish agencies that don't
pursue this. But what is the GAO's current estimate of improper
payments?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, the government-wide estimates, based on
what the agencies have done for the last fiscal year, was $247
billion. The previous year was $280 billion, but as I mentioned
to the Chairman, those estimates aren't complete.
Mr. Palmer. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. So, I think the number is much higher.
Mr. Palmer. So, OK, you estimate it is much higher. Let us
just say it is between $250 and $300 billion per year. Just at
a static level, we are talking, over a 10-year period, $2-and-
a-half to $3 trillion. And what people need to understand about
this $2-and-a-half to $3 trillion over 10 years that we are
having to borrow and pay interest on. And when we are trying to
deal with the debt limit and trying to get our fiscal house in
order, recognizing the enormous impact it is going to have on
our capital markets, that is a pretty significant number. That
is a pretty big hill that we need to climb.
And I would like for the Committee to continue to work with
the GAO to come up with a way to incentivize Federal agencies
to address this issue. I think one place that we could start,
Mr. Chairman, is on updating the antiquated data systems
because part of the problem, I think, Mr. Dodaro, you and I ran
into was the lack of ability for interface between data systems
between state and Federal Government. So, I think we have got
some real opportunities here.
I have some other questions I may submit in writing
relative to some of the things that my Democrat colleagues have
said that I want to evaluate a little bit deeper. But I do
think that we don't pay enough attention to how much money is
going out of the Treasury in improper payments, and we are
doing pay and chase rather than prevention. And with that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Ms. Balint
from Vermont for five minutes.
Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being
here, Mr. Dodaro. I appreciate your time.
The Postal Service is a lifeline for rural communities like
mine in Vermont. My neighbors in Vermont rely on the Postal
Service for essentials like medication and for many folks who
run small businesses, you know, out of their homes. And the
continued viability of the Postal Service, especially in rural
parts of this country, is one of my top priorities. Now, thanks
to leadership on this Committee, including our Chairman, Mr.
Comer, and former Chair, Carolyn Maloney, the Postal Service
Reform Act of 2022 was actually a really great bipartisan
success story of the last Congress, and I want to dive in a
little bit more on the Postal Service. Mr. Dodaro, how long has
the Postal Service been on the High-Risk List?
Mr. Dodaro. The most recent, I think, was 2009 when we
added it. Actually, if you go back in time, we added it a long
time ago. I will get you the specific date, but then we took
them off after some congressional action, but then they
deteriorated further. I remember because I actually was called
by the Postmaster General at the time, and I was Acting
Comptroller General at that time, and he actually asked us to
consider putting them back on List.
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. And we did. We made our own independent
judgment.
Ms. Balint. And, Mr. Dodaro, how did the Postal Service
Reform Act in 2022 contribute to the significant progress in
the high-risk area----
Mr. Dodaro. Well----
Ms. Balint [continuing]. So, we can understand that a
little bit better.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, it eliminated the requirement for pre-
funding healthcare benefits, and it forgave the amount of money
that they owed to that fund in that area. It also shifted some
of the responsibilities to the Medicare Program. It was mostly
in the healthcare area, so, but there are a lot of things that,
down the road, it didn't deal with that are going to need to be
dealt with. For example, the pre-healthcare benefits issued
around the 2030 time-frames, that fund is going to run out of
money because there is no pre-funding into it. So, at that
point, the Postal Service is trying to estimate what it would
cost to pay out of their operating revenue, which it would be
about $5 billion a year. I mean, they are already losing
money----
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. So, they are not going to be able
to deal with that. I mean, the first-class mail has been
declining. It is not expected to turn around. Packages, the
competition there is keen. Coming out of the pandemic, the
package revenue is going down. Now, the only revenue increase
is due to the increases in the price of postage, so they have
problems. They are still in debt in a number of areas. So, the
basic business model isn't sound going forward in the future.
Congress gave it some life----
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. For a period of time, but the
underlying problem is still there and needs to be dealt with. I
will ask Mr. Trimble if he has any additional comments.
Mr. Trimble. No, I think that that covers the main points.
I think just in terms of longer-term challenges that they face,
currently their long-term liabilities in debt is over $144
billion. And they are projected to lose in Fiscal Year 2023
about $4-and-a-half half billion. And so, when the Health
Benefit Fund runs out, if you are already running a deficit of
$4-and-a-half billion and you have to add another $5 billion on
top of that, you can see the challenges that they are currently
facing.
Ms. Balint. Well, I appreciate that. One of the things that
I always say about Vermont is that we run on duct-tape, twine,
and hundreds of hours of volunteer time, you know, from
Vermonters across the state, and we are cheap by nature. We are
thrifty, and I just want to convey that there are lots of rural
communities just like the one that I live in Vermont that
depend on the Postal Service for their very survival. And so, I
certainly understand the concerns about how the business model
is not working, and we made progress. I think, you know, by my
count, more than a billion dollars in financial benefits came
to taxpayers since 2006 because of progress in the high-risk
areas.
And I appreciate that as a thrifty Vermonter, but I just
want to plant a flag in the ground and say we cannot let the
Postal Service die on the vine. Rural America is depending on
us----
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Ms. Balint [continuing]. To figure this out.
Mr. Dodaro. I understand that. I understand that. You know,
my motto at GAO is elegant but cheap.
Ms. Balint. I like that.
Mr. Dodaro. Any Vermonters who want to come to work at GAO,
it is a good place to practice their thriftiness. But also, the
fundamental issue here, you know, if you look back in history,
Postal Service was a government entity----
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. In the beginning, and then
somebody said, oh wow, we can do better having a private sector
model in this area, and it worked well until it didn't.
Ms. Balint. Right.
Mr. Dodaro. And so, I think Congress is going to have to
come to grips with what model that we want to have if we want
to guarantee level of service to the American people and who is
going to pay for it.
Ms. Balint. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. And that is the decision down the road that is
inevitable in this case, and what we are saying is the sooner
Congress deals with that issue, the better.
Ms. Balint. Agreed. Last comment. Just, you know, we did
great work in a bipartisan manner on this issue in the past. I
want to continue to work on this. It is really not an
overstatement to say that rural America depends on the Postal
Service. It is a critical, critical infrastructure, and we got
to come together. We got to continue to come together in a
bipartisan manner on this issue. Thank you.
Mr. Dodaro. I agree.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time has expired. Before I
yield to Mr. Sessions, I would like to point out I spoke with
Postmaster General DeJoy last night, and we hope to bring him
in front of at least a Subcommittee hearing within the next
month or so, maybe two months, whatever the calendar will
permit. So, I think that is a very good point that that you all
discussed, and it is something that this Committee has
legislative jurisdiction on and we are going to have to take
very seriously. We passed bipartisan legislation, but there are
still things, I think, that need to be done, so I appreciate
that.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Sessions from Texas for five
minutes.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. By the
way, I am probably one of a few Members that sat on the old
Postal Subcommittee when we saw this happening, but because we
were not bipartisan, the answer did not happen. Mr. Dodaro,
welcome back. It is good to see you again, Gene, and thank you
for your service to this Nation as well as your colleagues.
During both the Committee hearing at which you testified in
February and subsequent hearing in the Government Operations
Subcommittee, which I chaired, we heard that self-certification
was a leading cause of fraud in the Unemployment Insurance
Program during the COVID pandemic. Thus, it would make sense
not to rely on self-certification in the future, and yet the
Biden Administration is proposing to allow applicants for
student loan forgiveness to self-certify for this benefit.
Look, I get it. The Supreme Court may decide the Biden
Administration does not have the authority to forgive student
loans. However, it concerns me that we may be poised for
another big giveaway because we are relying on self-
certification. Would the gentleman please address this issue?
Mr. Dodaro. I, too, was concerned, so I have commissioned a
GAO study to look at what the proposed operating procedures
would be if they are given the green light by the Supreme Court
to go through with an income-driven program, and so we will
have a report out on that soon. So, I share your concern on
that, particularly given what happened in both unemployment
insurance and the Paycheck Protection Program, and EIDL,
Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program.
Plus we have seen before on the income-driven repayment
plans at the Education Department where they didn't verify the
incomes, that a lot of people who reported zero income really
didn't have zero income. And so, we made a number of
recommendations there that they have better procedures to
verify the income in the Department in the process of
implementing those recommendations. So, you are right to be
concerned. I was. We are looking at it, and hopefully we will
have some recommendations, if they go forward with that
program, that can provide better safeguards.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Dodaro, thank you very much. In fact, the
Subcommittee and this Committee would welcome that. As you may
recall from the Subcommittee hearing, it was virtually a
unanimous bipartisan viewpoint that what happened in this
process of the D18 group and the things that occurred were not
in the best interest of anyone, except people who fraudulently
received that money. So, I want you to know that we will work
and I will work with our young Chairman and our young Ranking
Member, as well as Mr. Mfume and myself, on putting together a
letter that we would like to make sure that is accompanying
your feedback.
I think it is important that internally, your team make
sure that they understand that your report is coming, that we
look at it the same way, that we try and authorize this in such
a way to where we are all together, including the
Administration, not just Congress, so thank you very much.
Sir, has the GAO looked at the Department of Education's
self-certification, the one we were just talking about, and
have they come up with any realistic viewpoint about where they
might also, unto them self, recognize this did not work the
right way?
Mr. Dodaro. You mean from the Education Department
officials?
Mr. Sessions. Right.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Sessions. Have they indicated, whoops, didn't quite
work the way we wanted, or are they still out there following
this, look, we are going to continue this process?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. I don't specifically know the answer to
that question. I will talk to the team and get a response back
to you. I do know that there was some balking at cooperation
with us in the first place, and, you know, because they were
concerned that this might provide a roadmap for people to
commit fraud, and I was saying that is not my goal. My goal is
to help you prevent fraud in the first place. So, what their
exact posture is right now at the working level, I don't know,
but I will get you an answer.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. I think that insight helps the six of us or
the four of us up here as we attempt to provide our written
guidance. I want to thank you for your service. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back my time.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania for five minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Dodaro,
for joining us today in this important hearing.
Waste, fraud, and abuse in our system, you know, obviously
must be taken seriously. The American people work too hard for
their paychecks. They pay their fair share in taxes, or at
least 99 percent pays their fair share in taxes, and we should
be working to ensure that tax money is used to actually benefit
them. Yet Republicans on this Committee will decry the need for
oversight on our programs and in the same breath support
Speaker McCarthy's debt ceiling legislation that is on the
floor this week. Rather than help further the goals GAO lays
out in the High-Risk List, this bill seeks to impose drastic
across-the-board cuts to critical government programs and
significantly disrupt agency work that addresses the identified
problems.
Mr. Dodaro, in GAO's 2023 High-Risk List, you outline the
financial benefits that making progress on high-risk areas can
yield. Since 2006, how much in financial benefits have actions
on high-risk areas yielded for taxpayers?
Mr. Dodaro. Six hundred and seventy five billion dollars.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. I want to emphasize what the
comptroller general just stated. Addressing high-risk areas has
provided taxpayers $675 billion in financial benefits. Mr.
Dodaro, what factors do you include when you calculate
financial benefits?
Mr. Dodaro. We include savings, you know, cost savings,
better use of the resources. We also account for revenue
collections that may have come in as a result of our
recommendations, and it has included revenue enhancements as
well.
Ms. Lee. So, the financial benefits tracked by GAO are more
than just savings. They could mean reduced government
expenditures, increased revenues so that limited government
funds can be reallocated to higher-priority areas. Is that
correct?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct.
Ms. Lee. What are one or two examples of recommendations
from this year's High-Risk List that could produce financial
benefits and improve services for taxpayers if implemented
correctly?
Mr. Dodaro. There are a number. We have had a number, for
example, in the Medicare area, we think that if you equalized
payments by place of service. Right now, if you go to a medical
appointment at a doctor affiliated with a hospital as opposed
to a doctor who is operating their own practice in a private
building, the government will pay more for the same level of
service to the doctor at the hospital physician. And we think
there are tens of billions of dollars that could be saved there
as well. I think, you know, there is a number of savings we
had, if the Congress would act, to give the Energy Department
more authority to look at how we dispose of nuclear waste at
the Hanford site, that there is a cheaper way to do it that
would save tens of billions of dollars, if not more, in
disposing of that low level activity waste at the Hanford site.
This waste that has been accumulated since World War II in a
buildup of our nuclear weapons systems. So, those are two big
examples of where there are big dollars.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Just in closing, an ineffective
government causes more than just a headache for citizens. It
can mean people have to wait longer for tax refunds that they
desperately need, or that it takes longer to travel somewhere
because of our crumbling roads and our bridges, something
Pittsburghers know all too well. The answer is clear: we can't
drop ball when it comes to oversight of our programs. And with
that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Mace from South Carolina for five minutes.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we are here today to
talk about government accountability, oversight, transparency.
We have heard about cybersecurity issues and fraudulent
payments on Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera. And then our friends
across the aisle want to start banging Republicans over the
head over absolute nonsense and accuse us of wanting to
literally take food out of babies' mouths, I think is what I
heard earlier today. If I recall, it was under the current
Administration, last year, when there was a massive baby
formula shortage literally taking food out of the mouths of
babies during that shortage. And if I recall during the baby
formula shortage, that we even had under the Biden
Administration, Border Patrol agents that were literally
holding baby formula imports hostage where I had to call the
Border Patrol and get baby formula released from the Border
Patrol so that babies could have the formula that they needed.
So, to hijack this hearing over those issues is utter nonsense.
We also heard others across the aisle talking about, you
know, how Republicans want tax breaks for the wealthy. Well,
you know, one of the greatest tax breaks for the wealthy was
under the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, where there were
$250 billion dollars of tax breaks for the wealthiest one
percent. That is $26,000 in SALT, tax cuts for millionaires, an
almost $13,000 government subsidy the for couples who are
making half a million dollars a year to buy their luxury
electric vehicles, taxpayer-funded subsidies for the wealthy
for home buying, childcare, pre-K, Obamacare, paid leave, and
more. So, I really don't want to hear about the hypocrisy of
the left on this issue at all.
The IRA mentions taxes, fees, and penalties 637 times. It
was the largest expansion of Federal Government in 50 years.
There are over 150 new government programs. And today the
debate rages on about the debt ceiling, but Americans wouldn't
recognize it. Americans are living paycheck to paycheck right
now. They can't afford a platinum credit card with no limits,
and yet that is what the Federal Government is doing today.
The debate is not about, you know, about not raising the
debt ceiling. The debate is about how much to raise the debt
ceiling by. The debate is not about how soon to balance the
budget. The debate is not about that at all. It is not about
fixing Washington's out-of-control spending, which, by the way,
is bipartisan because under President Trump, he raised the debt
by $8 trillion, under President Biden over $4 trillion: $12
trillion added to the debt over the last six years. And we have
to deal with nonsense in this Committee when we are trying to
talk about ways that we can reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in
the American government system.
American families who run a business and run their family
budgets, they understand something that the Congress does not.
They cannot run on a deficit. They have to balance their
checkbooks every single week, and I am not going to give my
teenage kids a platinum credit card with no limits whatsoever.
And to see this debate politicized rather than having both
sides come together on both sides of the aisle to say what are
we going to do to fix the debt and the spending crisis that
both sides have created today. And it is absolute crickets from
our friends across the aisle on the left.
And so, now that I have gotten totally off on the other
side because the importance of this hearing is important, I do
want to get to you, Mr. Dodaro, on some of this. You mentioned
cybersecurity as being an issue, and I would like to hear some
of your thoughts on this issue. You know, one of the things
that we brought up on this Committee is the aging workforce in
the Federal workforce and also the workforce that isn't showing
up to work actually. But in the private sector, they don't have
this issue where you have four times the number of Federal
workforce employees in IT that are over the age of 60 that will
be going into retirement soon versus those that are under the
age of 30. I mean, how big of an issue is this going to be in
the next couple of years?
Mr. Dodaro. I think it is a very important issue, and point
in fact, strategic human capital management is on the High-Risk
List across the Federal Government. I am very concerned about
the Federal workforce. Less than seven percent are under 30. At
GAO, I might add, it is over 10, but, you know, because I have
been focused on this as well.
Ms. Mace. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. But this is a real problem for the Federal
Government. There are 22 areas of the 37 on the High-Risk List
because of critical skill gaps and shortages: government wide
in the cybersecurity area, human capital management,
acquisition management. And there are individual agency skill
gaps in a lot of critical agencies across the government. So,
this is a real problem that the government has, and I am
concerned about it.
Ms. Mace. And the last thing I will add--I only have 10
seconds left--I was learning COBOL in the late 90's, and I was
a programmer during Y2K, back then in the late 90's. Those were
legacy systems.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Ms. Mace. And the number of systems that we have on COBOL
in the advent of technology, even AI, and accessing our
vulnerabilities and keeping data safe and secure is something
else that we need to explore. I know your office is on top of
it, so we really appreciate the reports you have been putting
out and bringing cybersecurity to the forefront of this
conversation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Casar from Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Casar. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I think it is
entirely appropriate that the Democratic minority on this
Committee be talking about the potential impending crash of the
American economy and the global economy if the American
Government, for the first time ever, doesn't pay its bills. I
think if anything should be on the High-Risk List, that
probably No. 1 would be if this Congress, led by the Republican
majority, forces default for the first time ever against the
American people by this Congress not paying our bills.
And so, if we want to have conversation here about making
sure we don't have tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans or
the biggest corporations, I think that would have enormous
support here from the Democratic minority. I think it would be
great for us to talk about repealing the last of the Trump tax
scam, which we know benefited the top one percent of one
percent. Our colleague here, Congressman Jimmy Gomez, recently
introduced the 99.5 Percent Act, which would close loopholes on
the estate tax and end benefits for those billionaires that
continue to avoid paying their fair share every single year.
That is, of course, not in Mr. Dodaro's report because that
isn't part of your gig, but since it was brought up, I think
really important for us to say here that that is an extremely
high risk to the American economy and to the Federal Government
if, for the first time ever, the Republican majority refuses to
pay America's bills, basically holding things like SNAP
benefits for ransom over it, which would take food out of
children's mouths and seniors' mouths, and holding things like
veterans' healthcare hostage.
Just to get back to my line of questioning here for you,
Mr. Dodaro, your report rightly highlights the fact that the
climate crisis is having a devastating impact on our
communities. In Central Texas, 100-year floods now we really
call every-couple-a-year floods. We have had three of those in
the last 10 years. So, your report says that FEMA really needs
to update its work in order to address things like wildfires
and floods. Tell us, would FEMA be able to achieve some of your
recommendations and do the work that you all are tasking it to
do if its budget were cut by, say, 22 percent? How would that
impact FEMA's ability and other agencies' ability to achieve
your recommendations to deal with climate?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. It would definitely complicate their
efforts. By how much, I don't know. It depends on whether or
not they have carryover money left or multi-year funding that
is available. But the FEMA workforce has been a particular
problem over the years, and we have written a lot about the
current gap. They would have difficulty, you know, staffing if
we had, you know, multiple disasters, but they have special
resources they could call on.
But the biggest issue, though, there on the High-Risk List
is flood insurance, and given what you said, I am going to ask
Ms. Orice Williams Brown to talk about what we think needs to
be done in the flood insurance area. Orice?
Ms. Williams Brown. In the National Flood Insurance
Program, this is a program that has been on the list for many
years basically following Katrina. It is a Federal program, and
basically, the Federal Government stepped in to this space
because there was a lack of a private market because, no
surprise, you are quite familiar, flooding can be
unpredictable, but flooding is also the great equalizer. And
the challenge with the program is balancing affordability with
sustainability of the program.
And FEMA has been unable to charge actuarially sound rates.
They have taken some steps recently to improve the rate-setting
process and that increases premiums, but it also makes sure
that the premiums reflect the risk of flooding, and this is an
area that FEMA can only do so much. It does also require
Federal intervention in terms of addressing a number of issues
related to the program.
Mr. Casar. With the goal being you don't want your flood
insurance to be unaffordable, nor do you want the program to be
insolvent.
Ms. Williams Brown. Exactly.
Mr. Casar. And I would assume that a 22-percent cut to
something like FEMA would make that even more challenging.
Ms. Williams Brown. It would make administering the program
challenging.
Mr. Casar. And so, again, I think it is entirely
appropriate for the Democrats in the hearing here today to be
raising that massive cuts to programs like FEMA will make
addressing flood insurance harder. It will make it harder to
make sure your flood insurance isn't unaffordable, harder to
make sure the Flood Insurance Program isn't insolvent, harder
for us to deal with crop insurance as we see our crops suffer
from the climate crisis, along with consistent attacks on basic
programs like SNAP, which most folks know as food stamps. We
want to make sure that we have teachers in our schools. We want
to make sure that folks are able to put food on the table, and
we want to make sure that folks are able to be more and more
resilient from all of these disasters. We have gone through
floods and freezes, gone through the entire electric grid in
Texas shutting down, and we need to be expanding these
programs, not curtailing them.
Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Biggs for five
minutes.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
Your report suggests that as of December 2021, DOD expected to
spend more than $1.9 trillion to acquire weapons systems. Over
what time period is this spending expected?
Mr. Dodaro. I am going to want to ask Mr. DiNapoli, our
expert in that area, to respond. Tim?
Mr. DiNapoli. Thank you for that question. It is a
difficult one to answer because most of those weapons systems
equates to a life-cycle cost, so that can stretch out for 10,
20, 30, 40 years. So, it is a long period of time.
Mr. Biggs. So, as you look at it, have you made any
modification vis-a-vis the use of weapons from our stockpile in
the Ukrainian crisis?
Mr. DiNapoli. So, as we mentioned before, that we do have a
body of work ongoing taking a look at not only what has been
provided to the Ukrainian Armed Forces but also what we are
doing to replenish the stocks that we have taken them from.
Mr. Biggs. So, tell us what the result of your re-analysis
or modification would be.
Mr. DiNapoli. It is still ongoing, so we can't actually
give you the final results, but we are looking at, you know,
how they determine which stocks would be provided from where,
whether we will replenish them with new stocks or just going to
let them draw down, how we are going to buy those new socks and
when are they going to be available back to the armed forces.
Mr. Biggs. Have you made any recommendations?
Mr. DiNapoli. Not as of yet in that particular area.
Mr. Biggs. So, on DOD financial management, you indicated
that DOD has longstanding issues, including ineffective
processes, systems, and controls, incomplete corrective
actions, and the need for more effective monitoring and
reporting. And I think you testified to Mr. Grothman regarding
their failure of an audit in 2022. DOD financial management has
been flagged as high risk since 1995.
Your report states that financial management issues extend
beyond reporting as, ``Longstanding control deficiencies
adversely affect the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of
its operations.'' You state that 67 recommendations remain open
within DOD financial management and that implementation of
previous recommendations has resulted in a savings of nearly $4
billion in taxpayer dollars. Can you provide an estimate of the
cost to taxpayers for the unimplemented recommendations?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. We can look at that issue and give you an
estimate. Yes, we have done that across GAO, so I would be
happy to provide that to the Committee.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. I would love to see that because, I mean,
they implemented a few of them and saved $4 billion. I would
like to know the cost of failure to implement 60-some-odd.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Will do.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. On business system modernization,
your report states that DOD spends billions each year to
acquire and modernize business systems. However, significant
challenges impede DOD's efforts to improve their systems
environment. And you highlight three critical challenges:
improving business systems acquisition, improving business
systems investment management, and leveraging DOD's federated
business enterprise architecture. Can you provide an estimate
of the cost to taxpayers for unimplemented recommendations
within DOD's business system modernization efforts?
Mr. Dodaro. We will have to provide that for the record.
Mr. Biggs. OK. I look forward to seeing that.
Mr. Biggs. You also state that weaknesses in management of
contracts, finances, supply chain support, acquisition and
weapon systems acquisition adversely affect DOD's efficiency,
effectiveness and render its operations vulnerable to waste,
fraud, and abuse, which, in turn, affects the readiness and
capabilities of U.S. military forces. Can you discuss the final
impact in more depth? What is the effect of waste within the
Department of Defense on military readiness, and then I would
ask if you are familiar with a study that was released where
they estimated $125 billion a year was being wasted in DOD.
That is not an official GAO----
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Biggs. That is a journalist's estimate. So, I am
curious if you are familiar with that as well.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. We took a look at the study you are
referring to. We will provide some information for the record
on that. It has been a while, but I remember what you are
referring to, and I will take a look at it and give you an
answer for the record.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. I would really appreciate that because I
don't know whether they are accurate or not with $125 billion a
year, but if they are, and I think it was a 2015 study.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. So, that is eight years, and we have had
inflation since then. I would imagine that the waste, fraud,
corruption, duplication, whatever you want to call it, has
probably increased. I would really like to know where GAO,
where you stand on that, what you are finding, and I would look
forward to getting that. When might I expect that?
Mr. Dodaro. We should be able to provide something to you
within the next month.
Mr. Biggs. OK. Thirty days?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Yes, a month. I will go with 30 rather
than 31.
Mr. Biggs. I was hoping you were going to say 30 minutes,
but I guess I will take 30 days.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Timmons. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Crockett from
Texas for five minutes.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Too often when I sit in
this room listening to my colleagues on the right, I ask myself
why are we having this hearing, but today is a little
different, or is it? I applaud my Republican colleagues for
conducting this hearing because GAO reports highlight the
reasons why we cannot and should not pass the GOP's budget bill
this week. You see, my colleagues on the right want their cake
and they want to eat it, too. I call it hypocrisy and hype.
They want to use this Committee as an arm of the RNC for 2024,
but they don't want to provide the American people with actual
substantive solutions. They want to point out issues in the
Federal Government, but they don't want to give the resources
to fix the problems of the American people.
So, let us take a look at one issue that I know my
constituents care about: taxes and getting their tax refunds. I
am not even going to say tax returns. They want their refunds.
Like my constituents in Texas 30, last week, I had to file my
tax returns with the IRS, and like them, I want to make sure
that I get my money. But according to the GAO report that is
the focus of today's hearing, the IRS ``needs to increase its
capacity to implement new initiatives, improve ongoing
enforcement in taxpayer service programs, and combat identity
theft and refund fraud.'' I have no doubt Federal employees at
the IRS work hard to ensure Americans tax refunds go into the
right hands. How do I know this? Because my mom is one of those
Federal employees that works for the IRS, and, honestly, she is
the hardest-working woman that I know.
But even with this, the GAO High-Risk Report that one of my
colleagues wanted to have a hearing on today cites that the
primary reason for declines in audit rates and roughly $50
million to $250 million in payments by the government to
fraudulent tax returns is because of reduced staffing due to
decreased funding, because last time I checked, ain't nobody
trying to work for free. So, how would my Republican colleagues
plan to fix this?
Well, just this past January, they voted to defund the IRS
even more, slashing $80 billion under the Inflation Reduction
Act, passed by Democrats last Congress, and now Republicans are
using the GOP budget bill to cut this $80 billion to the IRS.
On top of how ridiculous this solution is, I am not even
surprised that the CBO projected that in cutting this funding,
the Republican budget bill would add $114 billion to the
national deficit. Simply put, if Republicans really cared about
fiscal responsibility and protecting American taxpayer dollars,
they would put their money where their mouth is, but as we
know, their budget bill represents their priorities, and it is
clear that their priorities are to protect wealthy tax cheats
instead of throwing the Federal hammer down on them.
At the end of the day, I am here to do a job, and that is
to protect my constituents. So, I would like to close out by
asking our witnesses the following questions. Mr. Dodaro, what
steps must Congress take to combat identity theft and fraud
through the IRS and improve Agency efficiencies so that people
can get their refunds?
Mr. Dodaro. We have a number of recommendations for the
Congress in that area. You know, one would be to require
additional electronic filing, you know, rather than have the
paper returns, you know, keyed in. That is an inefficient
process and introduces errors into the process. I will ask Mr.
McTigue to elaborate a little bit further, but one additional
thing is to give IRS the authority to set requirements for paid
tax preparers. Many of the unenrolled paid tax preparers
actually have greater error rates than people preparing their
own taxes.
Ms. Crockett. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro. So, I think it would be provided better
oversight over that area, and to also require more third-party
information reporting so IRS could match against the records.
That would provide more accurate and timely responses. Jay,
would you have any additions?
Mr. McTigue. Those are the key ones. I guess the one
additional comment I would make, Congress could provide IRS
with greater authority to correct simple math errors where
taxpayers have inadvertently made errors, information differs
from what IRS or the government has in its data bases. And that
would not only help in terms of IRS' administration, but it
also would reduce the burden on taxpayers to address those
errors through correspondence and back and forth with the IRS.
Obviously taxpayers need to have protections and the ability to
interact with IRS, too.
Ms. Crockett. I understand. Thank you so much, and you
would agree that IRS needs resources to be able to carry out
these plans, correct?
Mr. McTigue. I am sorry. What was the question?
Ms. Crockett. I was just saying you would agree with me
that the IRS does need resources in order to effectuate these
plans, correct?
Mr. McTigue. GAO has long pointed out that, you know, IRS
does receive considerable resources, and, you know, it is
imperative that they use the resources that they have most
efficiently and effectively, but that can only go so far,
particularly with the growth in the economy----
Mr. Timmons. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. McTigue [continuing]. And the, you know, growth in the
number of taxpayers.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you. I now recognize myself for five
minutes.
Mr. Dodaro, great to see you. Thank you for coming before
us to discuss a matter of the utmost importance. I commend you
and your staff on the work that was put into this year's High-
Risk Report. Many of the wasteful government programs that you
identified here today have been discussed and rightfully
criticized. Discussions are good and can be effective. However,
discussions require follow-through to be effective.
Unfortunately, Congress and the executive branch have been
missing the bar when it comes to follow-through for decades.
As you know, my colleague, Rep. Kilmer, and I worked on
legislation contained in last year's NDAA that requires GAO to
provide succinct priority recommendation reports to
congressional committees. These reports would be organized by
topic and contain the amount of time a priority recommendation
has been open for and a cost savings estimate, among other
things. So, my first question is, how many total priority
recommendations produced by the GAO remain outstanding? What
recommendations have been outstanding the longest, and how long
is that?
Mr. Dodaro. There are hundreds of open priority
recommendations. I would have to go back and look at the
winner, if you will, of who has been open the longest. There
are a number to go back a number of years.
Mr. Timmons. Is it----
Mr. Dodaro. It is years. It is years.
Mr. Timmons. Ten years or less?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I don't know, and I am not going to
guess.
Mr. Timmons. Sure.
Mr. Dodaro. We don't guess at GAO. We will give you the
facts.
Mr. Timmons. I will give you another one. What
recommendation that hasn't been addressed concerns you the
most?
Mr. Dodaro. There are a number that could save a lot of
money. The one I mentioned earlier in the Medicare area where
we are paying people differently based on place of service for
the same service. That doesn't seem to be a good practice on
the part of the Federal Government. Second would be the one I
just mentioned on IRS, which is to give IRS to set requirements
for paid tax preparers. I think that would generate additional
revenue for the Federal Government without any additional
costs, and it would be a more fair and equitable tax system.
The one on Hanford is important, too, because that has low-
level radioactive waste disposal. That has tens of billions of
dollars in potential benefits.
Mr. Timmons. I know you don't like guessing, but what if we
implemented all of the recommendations you have made? How much
do you think that would save the Federal Government?
Mr. Dodaro. Between $30 billion and $100 billion.
Mr. Timmons. So, we should implement these recommendations.
Mr. Dodaro. I don't have to guess on that. Yes.
Mr. Timmons. OK. How much of this falls on congressional
inaction compared to the executive branch agencies?
Mr. Dodaro. It falls, you know, about equally, you know.
There are a number of open recommendations for the Congress as
well as the agencies. Most of the big-dollar savings, though,
require congressional action.
Mr. Timmons. So, in regards to the initial report from the
legislation that was signed into law last year, the NDAA, how
far along is it, and when do you think Congress should expect
to receive it?
Mr. Dodaro. You will have it in June.
Mr. Timmons. In June.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Timmons. OK. Well, thank you. I want to transition to
PPP fraud. Obviously tens of billions, possibly $100 billion
was stolen through the PPP Loan Program. And I actually
introduced the PPP Shell Company Discovery Act, which basically
forces communication between SBA, IRS, and DOJ, and I think
that is just one step in reclaiming fraudulent payments. I
guess my question is, is the SBA fit to mitigate fraud in
future emergency situations? Did we learn anything?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, so we learned quite a bit. SBA is trying
to put in place a better fraud management framework that meets
GAO best practices. We have had several conversations with the
current administrator. They have finally designated an entity,
but it is not fully staffed yet. They still have to do some
more work, but, yes, I think we have learned some things. We
are trying to put in place better practices over there, and I
am encouraged, but we are not where we need to be yet fully.
Mr. Timmons. In retrospect, do you think that the CARES Act
should have given SBA access to some documents, from a limited
nature, from the IRS to prevent what was hundreds of billions
of dollars of fraud? Would that have fixed it?
Mr. Dodaro. That would have made a big start on it. For
example, they were prohibited by Congress from using tax
transcripts in the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program where
they use them for the normal program, and that put them at a
big disadvantage. Even though Congress corrected that later, it
still took them months to be able to get that back as a
control.
Mr. Timmons. Sure. Thank you. I yield, and with that, the
Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost of Florida for five minutes.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues called
this hearing to look at GAO's High-Risk List, a place where no
government agency should be. And I commend the Biden
Administration for making historic improvements over the past
two years to get agencies off of this list and welcome the
opportunity to help address some others. I also understand the
concern of my Republican colleagues. You know, three new areas
were added to the High-Risk List and one in particular, the
Federal prison system.
And, you know, I am kind glad of this new interest I am
seeing from Republicans on this Committee that are showing
interest in how incarcerated people are being treated, even if
it seems that started just about two years ago on January 6.
Some of us fight against mass incarceration, unjust prison
conditions, and a lack of re-entry resources on behalf of our
loved ones, friends, and constituents behind Bars. It seems
like Republicans are looking to do it only for
insurrectionists, but regardless of how you got here, welcome
to the fight.
Mr. Dodaro, I am curious. In the High-Risk List, the GAO
notes that the Bureau of Prisons hasn't evaluated programs for
incarcerated folks in decades. According to the GAO, the Bureau
of Prisons has longstanding challenges, including several
leadership changes, unsound storage of financial resources, and
poor planning and evaluation of programs to help incarcerated
people successfully return to society in their community. What
changed in your assessment of their failures that elevated the
Bureau of Prisons to high risk?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, one was the fact that this has been
occurring over a period of time. I was very concerned about
that. We also looked at the implementation of the First Step
Act and waited actually until their original implementation of
that act. You know, you mentioned leadership changes. They have
had six Directors in six different years, the staffing
problems, extensive use of overtime led to safety concerns both
for the inmates and the staff. And I will ask Charles Johnson,
our expert, to elaborate a little bit more.
Mr. Johnson. Yes, thank you, Comptroller General, and,
Congressman, as the Comptroller General mentioned, there have
been longstanding staffing challenges. One of the
recommendations we made was that the BOP needed to collect
better data and be able to monitor and come up with a real way
by which they are able to calculate their staffing needs.
Currently, we are finding that they have been authorized about
$40,000 personnel, and they are roughly at about 35,000. So,
they have a 15-percent gap in their staffing levels, which does
impact the safety and security not only of the individuals
incarcerated but their personnel as well. There is a massive
use of overtime. Overtime has increased about 100 percent, and
we felt like they needed to also assess their use of overtime
and the impact that overtime has on their operations as well--
--
Mr. Frost. Got you. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson [continuing]. Among a lot of factors as well.
Mr. Frost. Thank you. And I understand that before
assigning a high-risk designation, GAO assesses the
effectiveness of an agency's planned or ongoing corrective
actions. Mr. Dodaro, since the Bureau of Prisons was elevated
to the High-Risk List, has there been any signals of positive
change or compliance with legal requirements?
Mr. Dodaro. I was very encouraged. I met with the new
Director of the Bureau of Prisons. We talked about this. I was
impressed with her commitment to addressing these issues. They
are working on some detailed plans to address this area. We are
going work with them and agreed on a set of specific metrics
that we are going to follow to determine when we take them off
the High-Risk List because it not only takes leadership
commitment. It takes capacity, an action plan, and actual
monitoring and demonstrating some results. So, I think we are
going to lay a good framework in place.
Mr. Frost. OK.
Mr. Dodaro. Once we have those metrics, I will share them
with the Congress, of course.
Mr. Frost. Thank you.
Mr. Frost. You know, in Florida, we have the third-largest
prisoned and incarcerated population in the Nation. The
Republican legislature in Florida is intent on creating new
criminal penalties for reading the wrong books, treating the
wrong patients, what they call the wrong patients, and who
knows what other infringements on our freedom will come from
the state of Florida. Floridians have a large stake in
rehabilitation programs simply because we have such a large,
incarcerated population. What are some actionable steps that
the Bureau of Prisons can implement that can contribute to them
getting off of the next high-risk list?
Mr. Dodaro. They can develop a better staffing model. They
can make sure that they have a program evaluation plan for
evaluating these programs to help prevent recidivism. You know,
their latest estimate shows that about 45 percent of the
population, within three years after release, ends back in
prison. And so, there are a lot of those areas that they can do
as well as specifying a little bit more about what would
qualify for some of the benefits for early release right now
that is allowed under the First Step Act.
Mr. Frost. Thank you. You know, the effective planning and
ongoing evaluation of these programs is essential to lower risk
of recidivism and ensure formerly incarcerated folks can be
integrated back into our communities. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. [Presiding.] The Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon
from Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dodaro, what do
you think the estimated total fraud is for the PPP Program?
Mr. Dodaro. On the PPP Program, we don't have a fraud
estimate, but there was $36 billion estimated for improper
payments. We are looking at, you know, making that. The only
one we have a fraud estimate now for is, at the low end, was
unemployment insurance, which we estimate it was over $60
billion.
Mr. Fallon. And what can we do in the future to prevent the
PPP, you know, fraud or mis-payments and also on the
unemployment?
Mr. Dodaro. First is not allow total self-certification.
That invites fraud. Second was to make sure the agencies
implement GAO's framework for preventing fraud in the first
place. Second is to require internal control plans that have
special procedures for emergency loan programs. We are about
ready to issue report on a framework for that going forward,
but I think it would be good if Congress required that
framework in law. And also, any new program over a $100
million, in my opinion, should be automatically deemed
susceptible to improper payments so that there is an estimate
made earlier in the process.
Under the current rules, it could be two or three years
before they make an estimate of improper payments. This would
happen with PPP. I mean, the first time they did it is 2022,
you know. They should have begun doing it a lot earlier, but we
recommended they do it, but they weren't able to do it or
didn't do it.
Mr. Fallon. We don't hear a lot in this building ``common
sense,'' ``good sense,'' so thank you for that. The Department
of Defense spends millions of dollars each year to acquire and
modernize business systems, including ones that address key,
you know, areas such as, like, personnel, financial management,
healthcare, and logistics, et cetera. And in my opinion, every
time it seems like the good idea fairy visits the Pentagon, a
new colonel gets his wings. I mean, it is massively
bureaucratic over there, and I sit on the HAS Committee. There
is so much duplicative effort over there, and it comes as no
surprise to me that we struggle to bridge kind of the valley of
death in a system designed like that. Through your work at the
GAO, how do you think that DOD can best streamline business
functions at the Pentagon?
Mr. Dodaro. Implement leading practices. We do a lot of
studies. I will ask Tim DiNapoli to come to the table to
explain about how we have used leading practices to improve
their weapon systems portfolio.
Mr. Fallon. Mm-hmm.
Mr. DiNapoli. So, through the years, as I mentioned before,
DOD has been unable to deliver weapons systems on a timely
basis and cost increases. So, what we did for last 20 years,
have gone out to the private sector to look at a variety of
companies and see how they develop and produce their systems.
Mr. Fallon. Mm-hmm.
Mr. DiNapoli. And the companies that we identified cut
across industries, so it is not one particular segment. We try
to look for the best companies in particular areas, and what we
have been able to do is to distill those practices that are
common to leading companies. We have made a series of
recommendations through the years for the Department to
incorporate those, and for the most part, in the early years,
the Department has been able to do that in their policies. They
don't follow them on a consistent basis, which means that from
a practice perspective, they are not following what the
policies are.
We are currently updating that work to identify new
practices based on new technologies and new information, and we
have identified three or four key things that the Department
could do in terms of trying to develop weapons systems and
field them more quickly. The Department has not yet implemented
those in their policies. We find it mixed in terms of whether
or not individual programs are implementing them in their
practices. So, I think there is a ways to go yet in terms of
how weapons systems can be acquired, but that same principle
can apply to almost any business modernization system as well.
Mr. Fallon. Oh yes, and that is the thing. I think it is
obvious you can learn a lot from the private sector. Do you
think that they are looking enough to the private sector for
that help and really just to follow that example? You don't
always have to reinvent the wheel.
Mr. DiNapoli. You know, it is always a challenge, right,
because folks within the Department have a legacy system, and
they are trying to maintain those.
Mr. Fallon. Yes.
Mr. DiNapoli. And so, trying to develop new systems
requires both a maintaining of the existing, make sure they
have those capabilities, and then figuring out a way to
implement those new processes in an efficient and effective
way. There are sometimes challenges on both sides.
Mr. Fallon. In an efficient and effective way. That is what
we are after.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. One of the things that I think is
important is that we have been trying to impress upon the
Department the importance of maturing technology before you put
it into production. Oftentimes they rush ahead. Now, I know
that there are, you know, pressures to meet, you know, near-
peer competition and other things that force them to do that,
but that leads to costly reinvestments down the road where they
have to correct things.
I mean, the Joint Strike Fighter is a good example of that
and, you know, we are looking at the Columbia Class submarine
development that has got some scheduling issues and others. But
that is an important part as you sit on your assignments on the
defense committees to check on is the maturity of the
technology before they hit the production button.
Mr. Fallon. Mm-hmm. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair recognizes Mrs. Bush from the great
state of Missouri for five minutes.
Ms. Bush. Yes, great state of Missouri. All right. St.
Louis and I are here today for a timely and important hearing.
Mr. Dodaro, it is a pleasure to see you again, and hello to all
the GAO staff.
Last Congress, we discussed the Federal Government's
obligation to clean up areas where Federal activities,
including nuclear weapons production, have contaminated the
environment. The Department of Energy knew that Coldwater Creek
in North St. Louis County was dangerously contaminated in the
1960's, yet it has taken over 60 years to address this crisis.
The Federal Government now faces $626 billion in liabilities
for these cleanup responsibilities.
For decades, radioactive materials from the first atomic
bomb were allowed to seep deadly contamination into Coldwater
Creek in my district. Toxic chemicals, like radium and uranium,
continue to threaten the safety and well-being of my
constituents and my loved ones in St. Louis. As a result, tens
of thousands of people in my community have confirmed or
suspected exposure to radioactive waste. That means lung
cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, breast cancer, skin cancer, and
that is just to name a few of the tragic impacts.
Far beyond the monetary cost, I know the human toll that
this high-risk area takes because I have lived it and my
constituents continue to live it every single day. We are not
talking about a distant problem. I am in this room. I lived by
the creek for a number of years. Even when I moved a few
minutes away, the fully finished basement of my new townhouse
would flood with potentially radioactive water. My son's room
was in that basement. Our children are not safe living near the
graveyard of an atomic bomb factory.
Mr. Dodaro, what progress has been made on the Coldwater
Creek issues, which remains on the High-Risk List since 2021?
Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Mr. Gaffigan, our expert, to
respond, please.
Ms. Bush. Sure.
Mr. Gaffigan. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman----
Ms. Bush. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Gaffigan [continuing]. And we discussed this two years
ago.
Ms. Bush. We did, mmh-mmh.
Mr. Gaffigan. We did, and at your request, we have been
looking at this issue. Coldwater Creek is one of 20 FUSRAP
sites, which were the commercial side of the Manhattan Project
that have left a legacy of waste, not only in your state but
seven other states, so we are currently undergoing a review of
the Corps. The Army Corps is charged with the cleanup of these
20 sites, and we are looking at Coldwater Creek and all the
sites in all these communities, and assessing where they are
and assessing the environmental liabilities, where are the
risks. Are they following leading practices for doing the
cleanup, and what is the engagement with the community, the
communication and sharing with the folks at what is going on?
So, we are looking at all those issues.
And we visited Coldwater Creek in November 2022, talked to
the residents there and the cleanup officials, and we expect to
report to you in August 2023 on the status of that project as
well as the others.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. Thank you for all of that info. All
right. As we know, some progress has been made. Much more still
needs to be done just across the board. Last October, high
levels of radioactive exposure were detected in samples taken
from the library, from the kitchen, classrooms, fields, and
playground of Jana Elementary School in my district. The school
has since been permanently shut down. Mr. Dodaro, what more can
the Federal Government do to tackle this serious issue, or it
can go to, yes.
Mr. Gaffigan. Yes. Sure, and that's one of the things we
are looking at. I know there have been several studies done
just to that elementary school and what is going on.
Ms. Bush. OK.
Mr. Gaffigan. And I think that will be encompassed in our
report as well because there is contamination from that site.
Ms. Bush. OK. Thank you. Yesterday I introduced the
bipartisan, bicameral Justice for Jana Elementary Act to ensure
that potentially radiation-exposed schools in my district are
lifted up and not left behind. It will require the Federal
Government to clean up Jana Elementary and test other
properties in the school district for contamination. You know,
when we think about this issue, while Republicans are working
to cut funding that will undermine the Federal Government's
ability to meet its obligations to clean contaminated areas and
assist suffering communities like ours, Democrats, we are
working to make sure the Federal Government does more and
invests more robust funding to support our communities.
Congress and the Federal Government must meet their
hazardous waste cleanup obligations to our communities, yet
Republicans and their Default on America Act would deprive the
government of resources to tackle these hazards and put the
health and education of yet another generation of children at
risk. I want to thank Mr. Dodaro and the GAO for being here
today and answering our questions. I yield back.
Mr. Dodaro. Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair recognizes myself for five minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Dodaro.
There have been several programs that have been mentioned
today and in your testimony that have been included in the
High-Risk List since the 90's. So, the ones that I recall is
Medicare, the fact there are improper payments, cybersecurity,
which is a high risk, strategic human capital management. Any
others?
Mr. Dodaro. The ones from 1990, the original charter list,
if you will, was a DOD weapon systems, the Tax Administration,
Department of Energy, contracting system, NASA's acquisition
system, and Medicare.
Mr. Burlison. OK. And so, have any of these agencies fallen
off the list? Which ones have fallen off?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, these are the ones that are currently on
the list.
Mr. Burlison. That have been there since the 90's.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. There was 14 on the original 1990. I am
talking about just the original 1990 list. There were 14. Six
are left, so eight have come off the list over time.
Mr. Burlison. OK.
Mr. Dodaro. And in total, there have been about 27 seven
areas we have designated over time that have come off the list.
There is a complete list in the report on when they came off
the list.
Mr. Burlison. So, are there any factors that are in common
with these six that are remaining on the list? Any structural
issues with those?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, there are some inherent risk, you know,
associated with those issues. You know, weapons systems are a
one-of-a-kind kinds of things that are developed. Medicare is a
large and growing program with, you know, thousands if not
millions of transactions every year, you know, with those
programs, but they are all unique. There really is not one
single thing, but I would also, you know, point out that in
those six areas, even though they are still on the list, there
has been a lot of progress made, and some of the financial
benefits. We mentioned the $675 billion that has been saved
since 2006. A significant part of them have come from those six
programs.
Mr. Burlison. That is promising to hear because, you know,
seeing that they have been on this since the 90's is
discouraging. So, but do you have any issues with agencies
ignoring the fact that they are on the list? Is there any
punishment or anything that happens when an agency is
identified and placed on the High-Risk?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. The only statutory requirement is that if
GAO puts something on the High-Risk List, that OMB needs to do
a portfolio review of that issue. And so, we have been having
regular meetings with OMB, the agencies on the High-Risk List,
and GAO. I personally participate in those meetings, but, I
mean, other than that, there is no ``penalty.'' Nobody ignores
us. We won't let them. And so, you know, we are working with
them, and I would like to see, you know, the continued
leadership commitment. One of the things we take very seriously
is since these are longstanding problems, is to provide
transition between administrations of having each successive
administration commit to that issue, and I have had good
success there.
Mr. Burlison. But you could implement one measure that
would save the United States, you know, enormous amount of
money and eliminate a lot of opportunity for fraud, of all the
things, what would you say?
Mr. Dodaro. Equalizing the payment process by place of
payment for Medicare. Medicare. I mean, I mentioned this
earlier. I mean, if you go into a doctor's office at a hospital
or you go into a doctor's office in a private building----
Mr. Burlison. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. The government pays you more for
the same treatment----
Mr. Burlison. Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. In a hospital, tens of billions of
dollars there, and it will reduce the amount of potential fraud
in Medicare, and there is----
Mr. Burlison. Yes. I know of patients, family members even
that are on Medicare and were getting treatment in an
outpatient setting, and they were moved. The hospital made the
decision to end that service so they could move them into the
hospital so they could charge more.
Mr. Dodaro. It is----
Mr. Burlison. And that happens all the time.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, well, and it is costly. It is costly, and
you don't get any better treatment. I mean, you get the same
treatment.
Mr. Burlison. Same service.
Mr. Dodaro. So, I have been trying to get Congress to act
on this for many years. I have several of my gray hair have
come from this particular recommendation, and there are many
others that we have.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Dodaro. Sure.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Goldman from New
York.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dodaro, I want to
focus a little bit on security clearances today. The
government-wide personnel security clearance process was added
to the High-Risk List five years ago. Is that right?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct.
Mr. Goldman. All right. I see you have a colleague joining
you. Happy for her to answer any of these questions. That year,
the Federal Government announced the Trusted Workforce 2.0,
which was an ambitious personnel vetting reform plan that
intended to streamline and expedite the three personnel vetting
processes under a single policy framework, focusing on
suitability as well as fitness and a couple of other issues
that I will get to.
In the most recent High-Risk Report, the GAO says that
considerable progress has been made in implementing this
reform, but there is no rating for this area since the last
report. It also identifies several problems, including examples
of partially met initiatives relating to capacity, which is a
schedule to manage oversight of security clearances, an action
plan, monitoring, and demonstrated progress that. The changes
have not fully been implemented since the GAO recommended them
five years ago, and this is of particular importance in recent
months.
As you no doubt know, between January and April of this
year, dozens of classified U.S. intelligence documents surfaced
on public websites. And it was determined that a leaker, who
was a 21-year-old IT employee of the Air National Guard, who
had the highest level of security clearance, was ultimately
charged criminally with unauthorized retention and transmission
of national defense information and removal of classified
documents. Now, this individual, Jack Teixeira, regularly
posted racist and anti-government content online on the gaming
app, Discord, on a group called Thug Shaker Central, and he was
openly anti-Federal Government and criticized U.S. support for
Ukraine.
Now, this episode reveals severe blind spots in our
security clearance process, especially as it relates to White
nationalism and anti-government ideology. And, Mr. Dodaro, what
actions has the GAO taken or plans to take to address this gap
in vetting White nationalist and anti-government sentiments in
the security clearance process?
Mr. Dodaro. I am going to ask Ms. Berrick, who is our
expert in the area, to respond.
Ms. Berrick. Yes, thank you for the question. There are a
number of areas that we are reviewing with respect both to the
security clearance process and also the Insider Threat Program
that exists within the Department. Related to the security
clearance process itself, we are looking at continuous vetting
for individuals that have received a clearance. Right now, the
executive branch does not have a way to assess performance of
how that is working. We are also looking at the capacity of the
Department to develop a new management information system to
track clearances and be able to grant reciprocity. We are also
looking at controls related to protecting national security
systems.
With respect to the Insider Threat Program, we have looked
at DOD programs and have found that in some cases, they were
not meeting minimum Federal standards to protect national
security systems, so we made a number of recommendations----
Mr. Goldman. OK.
Ms. Berrick [continuing]. For them to strengthen that.
Mr. Goldman. Good. Right.
Ms. Berrick. Given the recent incident, we are going to be
doing a follow-on review looking at their Insider Threat
Program.
Mr. Goldman. All right. I am happy to hear that. I think
all or nearly all of my colleagues would emphasize and agree
that this is a serious national security issue, but I am
concerned that at least one colleague of mine does not seem to
recognize that this is a concern. Here is a tweet from a Member
of this Committee which says that, ``Jack Teixeira is White,
male, Christian, and anti-war. That makes him an enemy to the
Biden regime. He told the truth about troops being on the
ground. Ask yourself who is the real enemy: a young low-level
National Guardsmen or the Administration that is waging war in
Ukraine.'' Mr. Dodaro, without putting you on the spot, who is
the real enemy to our national security, President Biden or
Jack Teixeira who disclosed top-secret and unauthorized
information?
Mr. Dodaro. Anyone who violates their oath to protect the
Constitution would fall into that category.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mrs. McClain.
Mrs. McClain: Thank you. Thank you for being here. The past
two years, HHS under the Biden Administration, I think, has
fallen short in many areas. The GAO has concluded that HHS has
failed to establish clear roles and responsibilities, provide
clear and consistent communication, especially around COVID-19,
as it pertains to transparency, accountability, really to
ensure the public's trust, and has really failed to understand
key partners' capabilities and their limitations.
Specifically, as the Chair of the Subcommittee in Oversight
on Healthcare and Financial Services, I found the FDA to be
gravely flawed in responding to the baby formula crisis, and we
had a whole hearing on that. And we can say that, you know, it
is Abbott's issue and it is the FDA's issue, but last I
checked, we have all of these government agencies, and it is
their job to oversee to make sure instances like this doesn't
happen. So, my question is, has the GAO identified other areas
where the FDA has been deficient, right? We can't fix a problem
until we can first admit we may have one.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. I mean, there are two areas on the High-
Risk List that involve FDA, three including the new one that we
just added, but one is oversight of medical products and
safety, including pharmaceuticals, also a range of drugs, as
well as medical devices, and we made a lot of recommendations
there. The other is food safety.
Mrs. McClain: Yes.
Mr. Dodaro. We have had food safety on the High-Risk List
for a number of years, and FDA is one of the key players there
as well.
Mrs. McClain: So, I am curious because in my hearing I
asked a couple questions, but I am curious to know if you know
how many of those regulators are actually back to work and not
teleworking?
Mr. Dodaro. Offhand, I don't know. I don't know if any of
my colleagues know. Apparently not, but we are looking at the
use of telework across Federal Government, so I will check with
that team--they are not here today--and see if we have an
answer there we can provide you.
Mrs. McClain: I mean, I would think as a regulator, it is
kind of difficult to regulate a facility sitting on your couch,
but yes.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mrs. McClain: I think as much as we would like to stay at
home, we actually have to begin to hold the government to the
same standards that we hold private industry to, and that is
outcomes and outcome-based. What changes have been made around
food security and food safety?
Mr. Dodaro. Not enough in our view. I mean, we have been
calling for a governmentwide food security safety plan for a
number of years with clear performance measures and guidelines.
That hasn't been forthcoming.
Mrs. McClain: Well, so I just want to make sure I
understand.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mrs. McClain: So, we have a government agency that is their
job to oversee food safety, right? They hold----
Mr. Dodaro. Well----
Mrs. McClain: Right? They hold----
Mr. Dodaro. Well, actually, there are 15 Federal agencies,
30 different laws that require them to have food safety. You
have USDA involved. You have CDC. You have other----
Mrs. McClain: Sure, so 15 agencies.
Mr. Dodaro. Right. Right.
Mrs. McClain: Yes. Thank you for that clarification.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mrs. McClain: So, we have 15 agencies upon agency upon
agency----
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mrs. McClain:--to do a job. From what I heard you say, we
have given them recommendations or we have asked for some sort
of accountability, some sort of measurements, and they just
haven't had the opportunity to do it.
Mr. Dodaro. No. No. No, no.
Mrs. McClain: I wonder what they are doing.
Mr. Dodaro. Well----
Mrs. McClain: Clearly not their job----
Mr. Dodaro. Well, they are doing a lot of things.
Mrs. McClain:--that they are paid to do.
Mr. Dodaro. And they are doing a lot of things, and I will
ask Mr. Gaffigan to respond on food safety. But the issue is--
--
Mrs. McClain: But hang on one second.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mrs. McClain: Let me, and I don't mean to interrupt you.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mrs. McClain: But we have asked them for outcomes on the
job that they were signed up and paid to do, and we have not
received that from them.
Mr. Dodaro. There is no governmentwide plan yet. We have
asked Congress to require a governmentwide plan to create,
recreate an interagency working group to work together. We have
even recommended in the past there be a single food safety
program and that Congress, you know, move in that direction.
So, the agencies haven't done it, and Congress hasn't required
them to do it. Mark, do you want to add anything there?
Mr. Gaffigan. Yes. It has been frustrating since 2007 all
those options we have laid out, both for the executive branch
and for Congress. And to come back to your example of infant
formula, in the response, they said, well, let us develop
immediate national strategy.
Mrs. McClain: Let us hire more people to do a study.
Mr. Gaffigan. Well, let us develop an immediate national
strategy. That is not the way to do a national strategy, right,
an immediate national strategy. So, they are planning to try to
formalize that, but for each thing that comes up, these
agencies, working with all the regulations, try to address them
piecemeal, and we think a national strategy would be a much
more effective way to do that.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, like, for example, on the infant food
safety for infant formula. If I might----
Mr. Burlison. Briefly.
Mr. Dodaro. This is a very important point. On that area,
that market for infant formula is a very fragile----
Mrs. McClain: Yes.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Concentrated market that is
insulated from domestic and foreign production. And also, a big
factor is the WIC Program, and there is a single-payer approach
on the WIC Program. So, even though you have FDA there, the
actions taken by HHS on how we hire companies to provide
services through the states on the WIC Program has a big impact
on the infant formula market. So, you need a whole-of-
government approach to deal with these issues.
Mrs. McClain: We will talk more.
Mr. Dodaro. I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. I am
sorry.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Porter from
California.
Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, and they say
bipartisanship is dead. And yet I am the Ranking Member of the
Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services,
and Representative McClain is the Chairwoman of that Committee,
and I want to echo a lot of what she just asked you about. She
is absolutely right that we need to be outcome-based, that we
had a terrific hearing on this and yet did not get, I don't
think, a fully satisfactory plan.
I think what you have added, very helpfully, Mr. Dodaro, is
a sense that it is not just the FDA that we have bad
interagency, you know, sometimes bad interagency communication,
certainly a much better opportunity for interagency
cooperation. So, I am interested in the whole-of-government
approach. I think I would be happy to talk with my colleague on
the other side of the aisle about whether or not that is
something we should have a hearing about because I think what
we took away, both of us, Republican and Democrat, from the FDA
hearing is that what we saw with the infant formula crisis
could very well occur again because we have not fully adapted
and changed. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Dodaro. Absolutely. That is why they are on the High-
Risk List, so I am very concerned about it. You know, FDA has
got challenges on both their fronts, on the food safety front
and on a medical product safety, particularly since a lot of
that is foreign production now in those areas. So, both of
their responsibilities have grown, and I think it is a need to
take a re-examination of their capabilities. You know, we have
raised the need for a workforce plan for FDA and others, and I
am really concerned about this because part of this is, and I
have spent most of my career trying to get the government to
adapt to changing circumstances in their environment, and this
has outstripped the capacity, I believe, of FDA to deal with
these issues on a satisfactory basis.
Ms. Porter. Yes. Amen, and I will just say that I think a
big focus of my time in Congress has been trying to get the
government to adapt to changes in circumstances. So, I take it
that you think that the FDA's announcement to create a human
foods program is only a partial solution here to the larger
problem of interagency coordination that is needed.
Mr. Dodaro. Absolutely.
Ms. Porter. So, I mean, I think while that plan would
reduce fragmentation and improve coordination, it is simply
isn't going to get us to the whole-of-government, which is
where we need to be.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, absolutely. It doesn't get to the root
cause of the problems.
Ms. Porter. Now, as you know, doing the work and being
outcome-based, as Representative McClain says, takes resources.
The President's Fiscal Year 2024 budget requests an increase of
$521 million for the FDA, about 10 percent more than last year.
I want to make sure those tax dollars are used wisely and
effectively in programs that work, but it is hard to square the
FDA improving when, in fact, House Republican leadership is
asking us to vote for a bill that would slash the FDA's budget
by 22 percent or more. You just said that they have more work
to do. Is giving them less resources going to help them?
Mr. Dodaro. It definitely is going to be a complicating
factor to ensure that you have those issues. Well, we haven't
specifically looked at squarely the issue that you are talking
about, but it is an issue that has to be carefully considered
because it could have serious consequences.
Ms. Porter. Yes. I want to turn to talk about the Federal
role in housing. Homeownership is incredibly important to
American families, to their way of life, to their security, to
their well-being, for their ability to have economic stability,
and it is out of reach for too many, homeownership. Since 2013,
so for a decade, GAO has designated the Federal role in housing
finance as a high-risk area, and in 2019, Treasury and HUD did
work to lessen some of the risk by issuing housing finance
reform plans. They had 81 administrative recommendations to the
agencies. How many of these 81 administrative recommendations
have been implemented?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. I am not sure offhand, but I would ask
Orice Williams Brown, our expert, to help respond.
Ms. Williams Brown. Yes, thank you. I actually don't have
the list. We are happy to do some digging and provide a
response.
Ms. Porter. I mean, I hope you do do the digging because we
actually tried to identify some of this information, and we
were having trouble keeping track of whether or not Treasury
and HUD, they seem to have stopped systematically tracking
their implementation. And we can't tell if these are finished
recommendations or unfinished recommendations, and we can't
assess the risk that we still face in housing finance if they
don't do that. So, I would like you to both track them and put
it on your websites so we can see who is making progress on
these 81 recommendations and who is not.
I also want to just point out briefly, Mr. Chair, if I
could, that you also made 35 recommendations to Congress on
reducing risk in housing finance, and Congress has enacted
zero. And so, this is, again, like with the FDA, a problem of
both agencies and Congress having opportunities, and we can't
just keep passing the buck back and forth between each other.
We have to act in concert to deliver. So, thank you very much
for your indulgence, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mrs. Boebert from
Colorado.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
Comptroller Dodaro for joining us today.
It is this Committee's responsibility to investigate and
root out causes of waste, fraud, and abuse, and mismanagement.
Noticeably, this year's report indicated the Department of
Health and Human Services' leadership and coordination of
public health emergencies, even though COVID is over. And the
unemployment insurance system, it was added to the High-Risk
List after the Biden Administration has continued to fumble the
ball when it comes to responsibly managing taxpayer dollars
regarding COVID management. Comptroller Dodaro, for some
background information, what are some of the ways that certain
agencies and programs are added to the High-Risk List?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. We have a number of factors. One, you
know, we do ongoing work at GAO all the time across all areas
of the Federal Government, so we look at our institutional
knowledge of these issues. We consult each Inspector General
list, what they believe the top management issues are in each
of their individual agencies across government. So, we consult
that. We consider the amount of money that is involved--it has
to be at least a billion dollars--and we look at a lot of
qualitative factors as well, the impact on public safety, for
example, and other matters.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. The High-Risk List this year
included one very notable addition: the Department of Health
and Human Services' leadership and coordination of public
health emergencies. Can you elaborate on their failures of this
program?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Yes. I will ask Jess Farb, who is our
expert in healthcare.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. Hi.
Ms. Farb. Thank you for the question.
Mr. Biggs. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Farb. So, we looked at HHS's response to public health
emergencies over decades, so not just the most recent emergency
that we are all familiar with, but response to Zika, response
to natural disasters, responses to Ebola. And so, looking at
that, we found that HHS did not have a number of things in
place that would have helped with this response, including
understanding roles and responsibilities, the capacity of their
partners, communicating clearly with the public, being
transparent about actions that need to be taken. So, there were
a number of things that we observed over time across multiple
public health emergencies that allowed us to sort of come to
the conclusion that they needed to be added to the list.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, and I want to keep it visible to the
American public and to the Congress because I don't think we
are anywhere near as prepared for the next emergency as we need
to be.
Mrs. Boebert. So, have these leadership failures at HHS
contributed to other--it sounds like it does--other health
emergencies, like the baby formula shortage, the crisis at the
border, and several other natural disasters that took place
just last year?
Ms. Farb. HHS is a very complex department, as we all know,
and having multiple components that both need to act
independently but also work together, and we were talking about
this earlier how agencies need to coordinate, not only across
the government but also even within the Department. And this is
a case with HHS that they need to do more coordination within
the Department to respond.
Mrs. Boebert. The report found that the GAO has
consistently found deficiencies in HHS' ability to lead the
country's preparedness, as mentioned, and response for more
than 10 years, which is quite literally their job to do.
According to a report published in January of last year, you
identified 246 total recommendations for improving Federal
operations at HHS alone. How many of your recommendations has
the Biden Administration implemented?
Ms. Farb. I believe we will have to get back to you with an
answer on that for the record. I don't know off the top of my
head how many they have implemented, but they have implemented
some recommendations. How many of that that total number, I
can't give you the number today.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, and I would say, you know, HHS is one of
the agencies that has a relatively lower percentage of
implementing our recommendations than is the norm across
Federal Government. So, we are trying to work to increase that,
and whatever help we can get from the Congress, we would
appreciate.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. I look forward to assisting in
that and hearing that we have bipartisan support in getting
Congress to act to assist you in that. I think we should put
that as one of our priorities here. Another notable addition to
this list is the unemployment insurance system. In your report,
you indicated this addition is largely due to large amounts of
fraud and improper payments, which have come at a huge cost to
taxpayers, of course. Did the rate of these errors in
unemployment insurance systems increase throughout the 53-week
extension from this Administration?
Mr. Dodaro. It has been going on during the entire
pandemic, yes. Tom, would you like to add?
Mr. Costa. Yes, the improper payment rate went up. It is
now at 22 percent, but that doesn't include the Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance Program where we expect that the
improper payment rate is higher than that.
Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. My time has expired, and I yield.
Thank you for your answers.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Brown
from Ohio.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Dodaro, for joining us today. I appreciate us holding this
important hearing to review the Government Accountability
Office's Biannual High-Risk List. The High-Risk List is an
important tool for the government to responsibly manage
trillions of dollars of spending. And if we are honest, when
the Biden Administration came into office, there were certainly
opportunities for improved oversight of past Federal spending.
With the Trump Administration's $2 trillion tax giveaway to
the wealthy and giant corporations, Republicans' actions had a
detrimental impact on the Federal deficit. In fact, President
Biden inherited a historically high deficit. As always,
Democrats came in and started righting the ship. For example,
take the investment in our tax enforcement made possible by the
Inflation Reduction Act. That provision alone means billions of
dollars back in the pockets of American people by having the
wealthy begin to pay their fair share. Unfortunately, my
friends on the other side of the aisle are proposing
legislation to directly undo all of that good work. Their
Default on America Act is part of the backward, catastrophic
Republican plan.
According to Moody's Analytics, the Republican budget would
``meaningfully increase the likelihood of a recession and
result in 780,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2024.'' My
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing to put
our country on the brink of recession to make sure that the top
one percent can get away with contributing half or a third of
what a schoolteacher or firefighter pays in taxes. Does that
make sense to anyone here?
The Republicans' proposal slashes non-defense discretionary
funding by 22 percent. That would mean cuts of more than 20
percent from everything, like veterans medical care to rail
safety inspections and more. The Default on America act would
also threaten the strength of our Federal workforce and ability
of Federal agencies to fill those workforce vacancies. So, Mr.
Dodaro, how would the inability to fill critical workforce
positions at Federal agencies contribute to an increase in
high-risk programs?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, 22 of the 37 areas on the High-Risk
List--22 of the 37--are on there in part because they already
have critical skill gaps and shortages. So, the extent to which
those continue or are exacerbated would, you know, prevent them
from solving fully and gaining the capacity that they need to
be able to address those issues.
Ms. Brown. Thank you for that. Now, for the record, how
much in savings is returned to the economy for every dollar
spent at the GAO?
Mr. Dodaro. In the last five years, it has averaged $145.
Ms. Brown. Thank you. Frankly, I find it alarming that
workforce and skills gaps, which would be significantly
worsened by the default on our debt plan, could have such a
harmful impact on the high-risk programs that the Biden
Administration is working diligently to address. According to
the top experts, the Republicans' plan to hold the full faith
and credit of the United States hostage in order to force huge,
unnecessary, and arbitrary cuts would potentially put the
country on the brink of a recession, cost millions of jobs, and
hurt us all. Meanwhile, House Democrats favor protecting public
safety and improving public health, lowering costs for families
and students, and supporting seniors and veterans. And with
that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fry from South
Carolina.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing
today, and thank you, Mr. Dodaro, for being here.
The American people deserve to know where their money is
being spent. I have talked with a lot of my constituents since
being in Congress, and I know that they are hurting
financially. We see that in an inflation and in other things.
They have to decide right now between gas in the tank or
groceries in the fridge. They have to say ``no'' to a lot of
things right now. That is why it is so hard to look at this
High-Risk List. It makes me disappointed. It makes me
frustrated, and I know that these big agencies and programs are
prone to risk. They need to be good stewards of the taxpayer
dollars. If the American people have to cut back on spending,
why not the U.S. Government, too? Why not reform the way that
we operate our agencies to account for the American taxpayer?
I represent the 7th District in South Carolina, home to
South Carolina's finest beaches and golf courses. It is a
premiere retirement destination. That being said, I also
represent a lot of people who are on Medicare. In fact, my
district has the highest population of Medicare beneficiaries
in the state with over 201,000 people enrolled. Mr. Dodaro, I
want to talk about Medicare today, which, again, makes the
GAO's High-Risk List for, what, the 3d decade I think at this
point in a row?
The improper payments going out under Medicare total nearly
$81 billion. That is roughly 15 percent of the total costs of
Medicare. I bet Americans would love to have a little piece of
that back. So, I get it, Medicare is a giant program with
things going on. They slip through the cracks. In Fiscal Year
2022, $47 billion of Medicare funds were improperly paid out.
Mr. Dodaro, where is that money going?
Mr. Dodaro. I will ask Ms. Farb, our healthcare expert, to
respond.
Ms. Farb. So, a large portion of the improper payment rate
that is calculated by the Agency is driven by lack of
documentation. So, it is hard to know if the payment was made
improperly, meaning it should be returned so there is a
monetary loss, or if it was just a lack of documentation, for
example, a clinician didn't provide the information needed to
approve the claim. So, one of the things we have recommended in
the past is that CMS take a look at the documentation
requirements for clinicians and try to balance the idea of not
over burdening clinicians but also making sure the
documentation, you know, requirements are easy to meet.
Mr. Fry. How much do you think is being distributed to
fraudsters who are intentionally trying to rip off the Federal
Government?
Ms. Farb. I don't have an estimate of the exact amount of
fraud, but we can get back to you on that----
Mr. Fry. Yes, please.
Ms. Farb [continuing]. For the record.
Mr. Dodaro. There are definitely cases that have been
brought, and, in fact, most recently within the last year, I
think one of the biggest fraud in the Medicare Program has been
done by the Department of Justice under the task force.
Clearly, there are big cases of fraud involving a number of
people.
Mr. Fry. Right. Thank you. Would you say that most of the
money is because of improper payments from clerical errors or
otherwise? Is that where most of the losses----
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, it can be. It can be going to ineligible
people. It could be going to an eligible providers. It could
be, you know, the wrong amount. Most of this is overpayments.
Some of it is under payments, but it is a very small percentage
going to under payments. But the frustrating part, as Ms. Farb
mentioned, is that in a lot of cases, there is just no
documentation to tell, and you know if you were audited by the
IRS, they would want to have your documentation, but a lot of
the people in the Federal agencies say, well, it is just a
documentation problem.
I say we should have the same requirement when we are
spending money to make sure you can adequately explain to us
why you are spending that money as if you are getting audited
by the IRS. So, that is a problem, too.
Mr. Fry. How do you think that we can prevent this? I mean,
what are some steps these agencies can take regarding Medicare
to make measurable progress here?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, they will need to do more audits of
Medicare Advantage providers. They are way behind in those
audits, and they still haven't released the audits from 2011 to
2015. Jess, you want to add----
Ms. Farb. Well, also, they should allow the recovery audit
contractors to conduct prepayment reviews. They get a
percentage of post-payment reviews with this pay-and-chase
model we were talking about earlier, but if they were allowed
to do prepayment reviews and more of that, then that would
help. And Congress has to give them some of that authority.
Mr. Fry. Yes. What changes in strategies that have been
implemented in other agencies or programs to remove that agency
from the High-Risk List would be useful to the Medicare Program
if they were to apply?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, one would be to continue to have an
action plan to deal with these issues with goals and measures.
Like, they don't really have a goal right now, that I am aware
of anyway, where they would reduce the improper payment to a
certain level. And one of the problems that we have is that you
need to have a goal to know whether you are making progress or
not. Now, they have been bringing down the improper payment
rate, even those are big numbers yet, in the Medicare program.
The Medicaid Program is going the other way, and that is, to
me, a bigger problem in Medicaid than there is a Medicare right
now.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair recognizes Mr. Moskowitz from
Florida.
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dodaro, good to
see you again. I want to turn your attention to a high-risk
area that is not necessarily on your list, but it is an issue
that the GAO has published a number of reports about, and that
is the risk of defaulting on our national debt. Mr. Dodaro,
what would happen if the United States defaulted on our
national debt?
Mr. Dodaro. I think it would have relatively catastrophic
effects, you know. One of the reasons that, you know, the
Federal Government, where the dollar is the, you know, the
reserve standard is because we have most of most liquid
markets, Treasury markets in the world, and that provides a lot
of safe, reliable investments on the part of a number of
people. That is why a lot of reserve banks in other countries
purchase Treasuries. And I think, you know, we are borrowing
such large amounts of money at a high pace, that if we
defaulted on our debt, I think we would have a very difficult
time convincing other people to borrow. So, I mean, if you lend
money to somebody and they didn't pay you back in time, would
you give them more money? And we are pretty dependent on
having----
Mr. Moskowitz. Do you want me to answer that?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Dodaro. That is fine, but I have been trying for at
least six years now, maybe longer, to try to get the way we set
the debt ceiling changed. I think the way we have it now, you
know, we are only one of two countries in the world that do
this. The other one is Denmark, and they set their debt limit
so high they will probably never get there, so this is a
problem. Right now, what we have seen around these dead-impasse
periods is that people stop purchasing Treasuries that might
mature around a date that there may be a potential default on
this. So, it distorts the Treasury markets. It causes----
Mr. Moskowitz. Right. Even----
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Moskowitz. Even before a default.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and also you
see, the interconnected nature of our markets now. Let us take,
for example, just Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, two
relatively small banks in the scheme of things, but even there
can have potential systemic repercussions. So, I think a
default would have enormous repercussions here and would affect
not only our economy but have ripple effects throughout the
world.
Mr. Moskowitz. Yes, and since 1960, the debt ceiling has
been raised 78 times: 49 times under Republican Presidents, 29
times under Democratic Presidents, 18 under Ronald Reagan, 8
times under Bill Clinton, 7 times under George W. Bush, 5 times
under Barack Obama, 4 times under Donald Trump. And, you know,
this debt ceiling brinksmanship that we go into, I mean, I want
to talk about how damaging, you know, you think that is as
well, just this continued conversation that we always have to
have because the debt ceiling is used as leverage for other
issues.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Well, it hasn't yet ever changed the
trajectory of the long-term path of the Federal Government,
which I have reported is on an unsustainable fiscal path, but
it does raise the interest rates that people want to have to
borrow us money. So, in addition to distorting the liquidity,
affecting the liquidity in the Treasury markets and people
avoiding purchasing Treasuries, it costs us more money in the
short run to borrow additional money. So, it is really not, you
know, an effective way.
Like, for example, we have recommended that the debt
ceiling be raised at the time Congress makes the appropriation
decisions, you know, so it is done as a unified basis, or that
Treasury have the ability to raise the debt ceiling whenever it
is needed based upon the laws that Congress has already passed.
All it does now is allow Treasury to borrow the money that
Congress has already authorized and the President has signed
into law.
Mr. Moskowitz. Right, and, you know, we hear from our
colleagues about the economy, and the fall of the dollar, and
the fact that the dollar is the currency for the world, and the
rise of China, and we have a China Select Committee. I mean,
nothing, in my opinion, could be more fuel for the rise of
China and the fall of the United States in the eyes of the
world than defaulting on our debt. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes, I do. It will have economic but
reputational consequences that will be felt for years if we
ever defaulted, and I hope we never do.
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mrs. Luna from
Florida.
Mrs. Luna. For those of you tuning in, each Congress the
Government Accountability Office provides a list of programs
and operations that are susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse,
management or needs improvement. As of 2023 in April, there
were 37 areas on the High-Risk List, one of which was improving
Federal oversight on food safety, which is an area that still
needs major improvement after being added to the list back in
2007.
In the United States, the safety and quality of food is
overseen by around 30 Federal laws and are administrated by 15
Federal agencies. One major area of concern in food safety is
the use of food dyes, which have been linked to hyperactivity,
behavioral issues in children, including an increased risk of
certain cancers, and other health problems. This is because the
food dyes that they are using are derived from petroleum and
often contain chemicals that are toxic to the body. Other
countries like the United Kingdom have taken these safety and
quality of food so seriously, that they have banned dies like
Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 food colorings because of safety
concerns.
Another area of concern for food safety is the importation
process for foods, which are regulated by several agencies,
including the FDA and the USDA. I recently was able to visit a
port where I witnessed the importation process firsthand and
realized that in the instance of seafoods, they are not always
tested when they arrive at our ports, which is a huge problem
because studies have shown that China's seafood farms, which
produce about 80 percent the world's mariculture, are
responsible for dumping large amounts of antibiotics into the
ocean, giving dyes to fish, like Red 40, that are known to
cause cancer as well as whatever other nasty things they decide
to feed them.
Mr. Dodaro, why is improving the oversight on food safety
on the GAO's risk list?
Mr. Dodaro. We have a lot of concerns about the level, you
know. The last estimates in terms of, like, there are about
125,000 people a year to get ill from food safety. There are a
number of hospitalizations and there about 3,000 deaths that
occur based on the latest estimate, so I am very concerned
about it from a public health and safety standpoint. The system
is fragmented, and I will ask Mr. Gaffigan, our expert, to
explain some additional reasons.
Mrs. Luna. If, I guess, I could then ask him----
Mr. Dodaro. Sure.
Mrs. Luna [continuing]. Why has the Federal agency that is
tasked with improving the oversight of food safety not
developed a national plan or strategy to address this problem?
Mr. Gaffigan. I wish I had a good answer to that. We have
recommended that they do so in various ways. There was a food
safety working group back in 2009, shortly after we had put
this on the list, that stopped meeting in 2011. That was one
mechanism. We have talked about them then establishing, you
know, again, a national strategy or a Blue Ribbon Commission to
study this. We have done a national academies panel. Everybody
agrees there needs to be some kind of national strategy that
brings all these entities together.
Mrs. Luna. Do you know why they stopped meeting back in
2011, was it?
Mr. Gaffigan. Just, again, I think the problem is no one is
in charge, right? When you have 15 agencies in charge, no one's
in charge, and I think also from Congress, you know, we have
suggested that they could take action to designate, you know, a
lead agency. And so, it has just been kind of go along, and as
things come up, like we talked about infant formula, OK, well,
let us develop an immediate national strategy. Yes, we recently
did work on cell culture food, how they are going to address
that. And, again, it is the same issue. How are you guys
working together?
Mrs. Luna. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Gaffigan. OK. You need to do better at collaboration.
We made a bunch of recommendations in that lane. So, as each
thing comes up, and you mentioned additives. OK. Now, we need a
national strategy on additives?
Mrs. Luna. Well, for these instances, it caused cancer.
Mr. Gaffigan. Right. Right.
Mrs. Luna. So, I guess would anyone here feed your family
something that is known to cause cancer? Certainly not, right?
Yes.
Mr. Gaffigan. So, that is why it is on the list.
Mrs. Luna. Exactly. OK. So, does GAO in general, Mr.
Dodaro, look at other countries in regards to their food
standards and make recommendations on how we should implement
that here in the United States?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Mark, have we ever looked at that?
Mrs. Luna. Like U.K., Asia, anywhere.
Mr. Gaffigan. Yes. You know, that has come up at times. We
haven't done any recent work on that. You know, we are aware of
what is going on in other countries and sometimes talk about
that. There hasn't been an interest in that, and I will
mention, and this is the same issue on chemicals which are on
our High-Risk List----
Mrs. Luna. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Gaffigan [continuing]. What they do to address
chemicals and chemical assessments. The EU does things, because
chemicals don't know any borders, additives, sorts of things,
so I think there is some potential there. We haven't done any
recent work, or we haven't been asked to, but we are open to
having those discussions.
Mrs. Luna. I think, you know, obviously the bigger issue is
the American public needs to be able to trust the food that is
available for purchase at grocery stores, you know,
understanding that there should be a strict safety and quality
standard that is met before it is available to the public, but
unfortunately, that seems to not be the case, especially in
these instances. And I am just going to close with this. I hear
a lot of people talking about SNAP and EBT, but the more
processed foods there are, the more crap--excuse my language--
is in them. And unfortunately, this is basically government-
subsidized poison that we are giving to many people that can't
afford food and actually leads to long-term health impacts. So,
thank you, Chairman. I yield my time.
Mr. Burlison. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett from
Tennessee.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Dodaro. Did I
get that name right? What is it? How do you say it?
Mr. Dodaro. ``DO-dar-oh.''
Mr. Burchett. Dodaro. I am sorry. I am sorry.
Mr. Dodaro. That is fine. I answer to just about anything.
Mr. Burchett. Well, it is ``BUR-chet'' unless I win the
Heisman, and then it becomes ``bur-CHET'' because Tony Dorsett
was Tony ``DOR-set'' when he played for Pittsburgh.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Burchett. And then he wins a Heisman and became Tony
``dor-SET.''
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. So, I have not won the Heisman yet, contrary
to all the rumors that have been floating around. Thank you,
brother, for being here, and I know you all got up this morning
and thought, wow, I am going to go before Congress, this is
going to be awesome, and I can tell you are really just
enjoying it. Mr. Chairman, we didn't bring out a food plate or
anything.
Anyway, let me ask you. How long has the Department of
Defense financial management been on the Government
Accountability Office's High-Risk List?
Mr. Dodaro. Since 1995.
Mr. Burchett. All right. And what issue does DOD's
financial management face?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, they face a lot of inadequate financial
management systems that they have. They don't have adequate
controls in all cases, and they need to continue to work to
make sure they have got the proper workforce to be able to make
progress in this area.
Mr. Burchett. It seems like the Pentagon lost about a
billion dollars, it seems, in their last audit. I am not sure
if ``lost'' is the correct word, but you don't have to
acknowledge that. I was just throwing that one out for free,
but I am not bitter about it or anything. How many
recommendations has your office made regarding this risk area?
Mr. Dodaro. The DOD financial management risk? I can get
you the number.
Mr. Burchett. That is OK. I got it. It is $150. I am
supposed to ask you that and then, you know----
Mr. Dodaro. I am supposed to say $150.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Sorry.
Mr. Dodaro. All right, $150.
Mr. Burchett. Sorry my people didn't get your notes early
enough. I apologize, yes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. How many of these recommendations remain
open? Do you have----
Mr. Dodaro. I will get you the number. I don't know, but
most of them.
Mr. Burchett. My office found 67.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. I don't know. There might be more, I don't
know, but if there were more, I would like to know.
Mr. Burchett. What criteria does DOD's financial management
need to meet in order to remove from the High-Risk List?
Mr. Dodaro. They have to get an unqualified or unmodified
audit opinion, a clean audit opinion for at least two years.
Mr. Burchett. Two years?
Mr. Dodaro. At least two years in a row.
Mr. Burchett. When was the last time they did that? I am
just trying to figure out----
Mr. Dodaro. Never.
Mr. Burchett. Never?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. Well, that is an honest answer. Let me switch
gears a little bit, sir. Are you aware that the DOD is, well,
yes, you are aware they have five consecutive audits? Does that
sound accurate?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Yes, that is what they have tried. They
were supposed to have been doing this since 1996, but in many
years they didn't even try.
Mr. Burchett. How long have you been on the job with this
bunch?
Mr. Dodaro. In June, I will have been at GAO 50 years.
Mr. Burchett. Whew. All right. I am just 58, so I was eight
years old when you started up here. How does that make you
feel?
Mr. Dodaro. Fine.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. Good. That is a good answer. Good answer. Not
in my questions either. I have had so much caffeine today, I am
just letting you have it. OK. In 2022, the DOD could only
account for 39 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7
trillion in liabilities. Are you aware of that?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. OK. In your opinion, do you think that is
fiscally responsible? Am I asking you a question you can't
answer, or is that just one of those you just have to kind of
smirk and turn your head?
Mr. Dodaro. No, no, it is not fiscally responsible.
Mr. Burchett. Another honest answer, sir. You have no place
in Washington.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. Are you aware they make up--DOD, that is--
they make up roughly 50 percent of their discretionary
spending?
Mr. Dodaro. That is correct.
Mr. Burchett. Is that normal? Is that it is just----
Mr. Dodaro. No, historically, that is the number, you know,
but what has happened is that, you know, about two-thirds of
the Federal budget hours are mandatory spending areas, so the
size of the discretionary budget has been shrinking----
Mr. Burchett. Sure.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. Over time. So, DOD proportionally
has a high share of it.
Mr. Burchett. Why do you think we should give such a
fiscally irresponsible department half of our discretionary
budget?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I mean, those are policy decisions by the
Congress that are made, and clearly, I mean, they have an
essential critical mission to fulfill. We have a lot of, you
know, adversaries and we need do it. I mean, we need to provide
it, but whether or not Congress should allow them to have less
oversight on this matter, I would say that they shouldn't.
Mr. Burchett. OK.
Mr. Dodaro. And we should have more oversight.
Mr. Burchett. All right. Well, that is the end of my
questioning. I want to say thank you. You have given me very
honest answers, and I appreciate that. I have been up here for
five years. Some of these old timers, you know, I have seen
them come and go, you know, ``back when Teddy Roosevelt did
it,'' but I want to thank you. You have been very honest and
forthcoming, and that speaks well for you and those folks that
work with you all. Thank you very much, sir, ma'am.
Chairman Comer. [Presiding.] The Chair recognizes Mr.
Langworthy from New York for five minutes.
Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
first of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. Dodaro, for being
here today and being so forthright with our panel. The High-
Risk List is a valuable tool for the Committee on Oversight and
Accountability, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to
hear from you here today.
I want to start today by looking at cybersecurity. GAO
listed cybersecurity as an area needing significant attention.
Can you explain why this is?
Mr. Dodaro. There is enormous risk to our country, both in
terms of sensitive information being able to be accessed,
denial of service attacks, shutting down of our critical
infrastructure in a number of areas, so this is enormous. As
all organizations, public and private sector, have been more
dependent on the internet and more on computerized systems,
both industrial systems as well as information technology and
other operational systems, our exposure is enormous. And it is
something that hasn't been adequately addressed.
I mean, I first raised this issue in 1997, critical
infrastructure protection, 2003. And so, the government is
still not operating at a pace commensurate with a serious
evolving threat. Now we have articulated at least four areas
and 10 things that need to be done, and Mr. Marinos, who is our
expert, can elaborate on that, Congressman.
Mr. Langworthy. Very good.
Mr. Marinos. Yes. Congressman Langworthy, I think,
ultimately, the critical path is clearly there. We have been
calling for decades for a comprehensive strategy to be
established. We have seen the last five administrations,
including this one, put forward a national strategy. The rubber
is going to meet the road with implementation because,
ultimately, the threats are going to be pervasive. They are
going to be ever-evolving, and if we are not able to determine
whether or not we are doing an effective job at protecting our
Nation against them, we are always going to be behind.
Mr. Langworthy. It seems like something that an endless
supply of resources can go toward, you know, without
necessarily achieving what we need to do. Since 2010, GAO has
made 4,000 recommendations, and approximately 670 of those been
made in just the last two years alone. Is there a reason why
less than one-quarter of the recommendations have been
satisfied?
Mr. Dodaro. This area hasn't been given enough priority, in
my opinion, by the top leadership at the departments and
agencies all along, and those recommendations we make are very
specific. They should be able to be implemented in a much more
rapid fashion, particularly since the evolving threat is
happening at a more rapid pace. So, we are falling further and
further behind, in my opinion.
Mr. Langworthy. Do you have anything you would like to add?
Mr. Marinos. I would wholeheartedly agree. Ultimately, it
is about agency leadership committing resources to actually
addressing the issues, as the Comptroller General noted. In
fact, many of our recommendations are very technical and very
specific in nature, so in many ways, we are providing a road
map for the agencies to implement them. A lot of times they are
challenged by legacy systems that need to be updated in order
to actually improve security, but at the end of the day, if
agency leadership commits resources to it, they can do a better
job than they have so far.
Mr. Langworthy. So, most of the GAO's criteria, they are
all rated as partially met, the same rating that they had had
in the last Congress. How does GAO measure progress for each
criterion?
Mr. Marinos. It can be very complex, in part, because, as
the Comptroller General noted, this is a very expansive area.
So, if we are looking, for example, at whether the
Administration has implemented a comprehensive strategy, there
are going to be certain metrics that we would like to see
specificity and who is responsible for each of the actions that
have been identified as a priority. Ultimately, one expectation
we should have as a Nation that we will see, you know, those
goals met. But if you are looking at, for example, specific
agency information security issues, then those measurements are
going to come ultimately at seeing improvements in key areas
that Federal legislation calls for, not only the agencies, but
the Inspector Generals to assess on an annual basis. So, those
would be things like addressing weaknesses in a comprehensive
and a quick manner and being able to see that they are able to
continuously monitor the protections that they have put in
place.
Mr. Langworthy. Very good. I think we know the risk to
national cybersecurity if these criteria don't improve, but
what recommendations in closing would you have for us as
Members of Congress in relation to protecting our digital
privacy and hardening our systems?
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Actually, one is to hold oversight
hearings on the implementation plan when it is developed and
get our critique of the implementation plan, and then have
steady progress reports on that plan and whether it is being
executed on time. We have also recommended that Congress update
the privacy laws. You know, the original Privacy Act was passed
in 1974. There have been some modest changes, but it is
completely out of date in terms of protecting the privacy of
American citizens.
Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Armstrong from North Dakota for five minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, if there is
ever a more somber and sober example of bureaucratic inertia
and inefficiencies lasting for more than one administration, I
think this hearing is always a really good example. And, you
know, we continue to speak about funding and resources, and
funding and resources, but also at the same time over the last
half a century, Congress has abdicated its responsibility and
allowed many of these agencies to continue to expand their
scope while they often suffer on providing the basic needs and
basic services in which they were originally designed to do.
And I wish some of my colleagues, particularly Mr. Frost
from Florida, was here, because with all due respect, Mr.
Dodaro, and you have a great report on Bureau of Prisons, we
think they could use a little motivation. And we have dropped a
bicameral, bipartisan bill on Bureau of Prison oversight
reform, and if we get a little chance, we will get back to
that. But I would like to start with something that is
important to my state and my jurisdiction.
The Bureau of Indian Education was added to the GAO High-
Risk List in 2017, but I think we all recognize that problems
persisted for decades before that, and BIE is still on your
High-Risk List. I believe that one of the reasons for this is
that BIE bureaucracy does not have the necessary flexibility to
adapt and meet the needs of various tribal communities where
students attend either tribally controlled or Bureau-operated
schools. The needs of tribal communities vary from tribe to
tribe, and the most important partners in education are
parents, teachers, administrators, and tribal governments. The
foundation of this relationship is the engagement between the
BIE and individual constituencies for each school system.
Given the unique needs of tribal education, has GAO
evaluated BIE's community engagement methodology?
Mr. Dodaro. We definitely have pointed out that there needs
to be more engagement between the Federal agencies and the
community. This is something that is very important. You know,
I have created a special tribal council of representatives to
give me advice and our people at GAO about how to get better
engagement, and we have seen this from time to time when we
look at different programs that involve tribes and their
representatives, and there needs to be more engagement. They
want to have more engagement and they have different needs, and
so I think it is very important that the Federal agencies have
more aggressive community engagement.
Mr. Armstrong. Yes. I mean, even in a state like North
Dakota, just the varying different communities even within one
state are so varyingly different from one another. I mean, at
least there, they suffer from the dual impact of rural and a
lot of traditional headwinds that they have been looking at
essentially since they formed.
So, in 2022, the GAO testified before Congress that the
Federal Government works with the tribes toward the goal of
ensuring that Interior-funded schools are of the highest
quality and provide for the basic elementary and secondary
educational needs of their student population, including
meeting their unique educational and cultural needs. Yet the
graduation rate in BIE schools is 53 percent, and the national
average graduation rate of all Native Americans is 69 percent.
I am concerned that the systemic issues at the BIE,
including lack of sufficient community engagement and an overly
bureaucratic operating structure, contribute to lower
graduation rates and student successes. If the graduation rate
at BIE schools is only 53 percent, do you think the BIE is
meeting the goal of ensuring schools are of the highest quality
in providing an education?
Mr. Dodaro. No. No, not at all, and that is why they are on
the list. You know, they have staffing shortages over there,
about 27 understaffed. They really haven't focused on
technology needs of the schools, and in today's environment, if
you don't do that, you are really disadvantaging the students.
Mr. Armstrong. Well, and they are suffering 30 years of
very much understanding the difference between appropriated and
authorized. I mean, the deferred maintenance lists in tribal
education systems are fantastic.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Armstrong. It is hard and they know it, and if they
didn't know it before COVID, they knew it just like everybody
did after COVID. Having reliable access to the internet and
technology is absolutely essential for 21st century education.
Mr. Dodaro. Right.
Mr. Armstrong. The flip side to that is, it is a little
hard to do that when you have kids wearing parkas and hats
because you haven't had windows replaced, even though they have
been authorized to be replaced for the last 30 years or so.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. Yes, the condition of the schools was the
other reason we put them on the list and to have better
construction assistance.
Mr. Dodaro. Well, I appreciate GAO's dedication and being
able to shine a light on this issue. It is just something we
have to get on, and this is not one of those that we should
wait three or four more administrations before we deal with it.
So, I appreciate it very much, and with that, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia from
California for five minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, of
course, to Mr. Dodaro and want to just thank you for all the
work that you do and your team does.
We know that in the last two years since President Biden
took office, we have seen an incredible amount of progress, and
a lot of us are really grateful for the work that has happened
throughout the Administration and throughout all levels of
government. We have demonstrated that our government can work
better efficiently and still get a lot of progress for the
American people. And the Administration has clearly provided
stable leadership, in much a contrast of the Trump
Administration and their years of chaos across our government.
Now, Brookings reports that top-level turnout is down from
92 percent during the Trump Administration down to 44 percent
now, which is the lowest in recent history, and those results,
I think, are pretty clear across the government. Now, Mr.
Dodaro, since the last 2021 report, of the 34 high-risk areas
that the GAO identified, that have been identified, how many of
those have seen improvements of those 34?
Mr. Dodaro. Sixteen.
Mr. Garcia. And that is essentially half of those areas, so
those improvements in the last two years have happened under
President Biden. And how much financial benefit total has that
brought through those improvements?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, we have categorized at least and
recognized $100 billion of financial savings to the government.
But I want to add, though, that I think, you know, while the
Administration has done a very good job, a lot of progress is
due to Congress, too, acting on a number of pieces of
legislation. So, I want to make sure Congress gets its credit.
Sometimes it gets its blame. In this case, it deserves some
credit along with the Administration. I am very pleased with
their engagement.
Mr. Garcia. So, approximately $100 billion in financial
benefit, improvements to 16 of 34 high-risk areas, obviously
support for the work that Congress is doing as well, all seems
to be very good news and a good direction. Now, Mr. Dodaro,
since the GAO began publishing the high-risk ratings, has any
congressional term yielded more progress than the last Congress
in the 117th?
Mr. Dodaro. No.
Mr. Garcia. So, I wasn't a member of 117th. I wish I was
looking at those numbers, but I do want to congratulate the
work in the last two years for the incredible savings and
really reforms that have made our government work better for
the American people, and so I want to note that. Now, despite
this historic progress that we are seeing and the benefits to
everyday Americans, our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, unfortunately, want to propose just damaging spending
cuts that would damage a lot of this progress. I want to
highlight a couple more of those pieces.
In 2021, of course, Congress passed the Infrastructure and
Jobs Act. That provided $541 billion for surface transportation
and transferred about $270 billion to the Highway Trust Fund
for those of us that are in districts that work a lot with
ports and the supply chain, which this is really critical for.
Now, did the GAO report identify what would have happened to
the solvency of the Highway Fund without this funding?
Mr. Dodaro. Well, it would have been insolvent.
Mr. Garcia. So, our Highway Trust Fund would have gone
insolvent had not been for the action that happened through the
Congress and the President of this last Congress. I just want
to make sure that that is very clear.
Mr. Dodaro. Yes. No, that is clear, and in the preceding
Congresses. I mean, the Highway Trust Fund has not had enough
money automatically generated through revenues for a number of
years, and Congress has been augmenting that----
Mr. Garcia. I completely agree.
Mr. Dodaro [continuing]. With general appropriations.
Mr. Garcia. Completely agree with you. Completely agree
with you there. And on climate resiliency, another area,
President Biden and more than 20 agencies have taken steps to
improve resiliency, improve sustainability. Did the GAO
identify what happens to the government's fiscal exposure if we
don't address climate change?
Mr. Dodaro. The fiscal exposure will continue to grow. I
mean, that is why we have it on the High-Risk List. It is very
important to build resiliency up in front, but also, in 2018,
Congress passed legislation to allow some of the recovery money
to also go toward building back better than what you did before
rather than just replacing what was there.
Mr. Garcia. Absolutely. And to be clear, investments in
climate change lower the government's fiscal exposure, and that
is something that has been pretty clear in what you are saying.
Investments in climate change are actually good for the
government, good for efficiency, and obviously important for us
to save our planet and our country, so thank you for
reinforcing that. And, of course, despite of all this
incredible progress the last Congress made, the President made,
Republicans are still trying to propose cuts across our
government, which is really unacceptable. They are gutting
investments in climate. They are gutting investments in all the
great work that happened the in the Infrastructure and Jobs
Act. And so, thank you for pointing out the actual progress
that has been made through President Biden in the 117th
Congress when Democrats controlled the House.
With that, I just want to thank you again for your service
and to the service of your team, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. That concludes
our questioning phase. In closing, Mr. Dodaro, I want to thank
you and your staff for being here today for this important
testimony. And I now yield to Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez for
her closing statement.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you Mr. Chair, and I would like to
thank Mr. Dodaro again for his insightful testimony today along
with plenty of the GAO staff who have come up to help as well.
You know, we are very proud of much of the work and much of
the progress that has happened over the last two years to help
achieve the most progress in the high-risk areas since the GAO
started its ratings about eight years ago. We clearly have a
lot of work to do, but the momentum is on our side. This
progress means better results for the American people,
including easier access to hard-earned benefits, a more
effective government, and billions of dollars in savings that
can be used to help Americans elsewhere.
As we have heard today, it is absolutely imperative that we
maintain this momentum and do more to improve Federal
Government operations, not less. And let me be clear: the
Republicans' Default on America Act, which they are working to
pass imminently, would do less for the American people, a lot
less. The disastrous cuts would force Federal agencies to shift
their focus away from addressing high-risk areas as they
struggle to triage the effects of depleted workforces and
decimated resources.
Mr. Dodaro also clearly explained today that debt limit
brinkmanship and the prospect of a default clearly present
grave dangers to the American people as well. Republicans
should not be holding the full faith and credit of the U.S.
Government hostage to force these dangerous cuts. Working to
reduce risk to the American people should be a bipartisan
priority, and risking default will make the risks we have
discussed today even worse. Republicans should stop pushing
through this short-sighted, pennywise and pound foolish debt
bill, and the American people can all improve and deserve a
better outcome. With that being said, I think that there were
multiple areas identified today where there is bipartisan
collaboration, from Medicare to Postal Services, and I look
forward to working with the Chair and colleagues on those areas
of common interest. And I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you, Mr.
Dodaro. Thank you again for being here today and for sharing
these incredibly valuable insights with the Committee. I would
also like to extend our gratitude to the GAO staff for their
work on all of these issues and for answering our many
questions on ways to improve the functionality of the Federal
Government.
As we have heard here this morning, the 2023 High-Risk List
is a valuable tool for Congress to help identify areas that
need the most oversight, and we know that effective oversight
works. When Congress and, more specifically, this Committee
holds agencies accountable for their ability to provide
taxpayer-funded services, we see more efficient management of
Federal resources, and Congress can make more informed
decisions about what programs really work. In the past 17 years
alone, we know that this report has helped save approximately
$675 billion in Federal resources, and there is still more work
to be done.
I believe we have found several areas of bipartisan
interest at this hearing, just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said,
including better oversight of our Postal System, baby formula
shortages, and food safety. I look forward to working with my
colleagues across the aisle to continue to oversee all the
Federal programs mentioned here today and ensure that they are
performing to the standards that taxpayers expect to see from
their government. Thank you again for your testimony here
today.
And without objection, all Members will have five
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
Chairman Comer. If there is no further business, without
objection, this Committee stands adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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