On the eve of Hurricane Milton’s landfall on a disaster-weary Florida, FEMA, the nation’s disaster relief agency reported a stark shortage of frontline workers available to be deployed: just 8% of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s vaunted Incident Management personnel were still available for deployment.
Read MoreTag: Government Accountability Office
Commentary: Vaccine Ad Blitz Sidestepped Transparency Rules
“A bun in the toaster oven,” a woman exclaims off-camera, handing an ultrasound image to family members who erupt into tearful emotion over the news. “Oh my God!”
The touching baby announcement video then gets down to business as text appears on the screen amidst the ongoing celebration, suggesting the best way to stay alive for this joyous birth is by becoming vaccinated against COVID-19. “Why will you get vaccinated? … Because some people you just want to meet in person.”
Read MoreVeteran: DOD Withholds Documents on Whether DEI Hiring Improves National Security
The U.S. Department of Defense is under scrutiny for refusing to release records about exactly how spending on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion helps with national security.
The Center to Advance Security in America in May filed with the DOD a Freedom of Information Act Request, the legal pathway to obtain government documents. The FOIA sought to find out what DOD officials estimate is the real impact on national security of DEI spending, for which Congress approved $86.5 million in fiscal year 2023.
Read MoreOne Rule Has Saved Americans from Billions in Wasteful Government Spending
A rule requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to publish annual reports on wasteful spending has saved billions of taxpayer dollars since 2011, according to an Open the Books report released Wednesday.
Former Republican Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn amended the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 to require the GAO to include an investigation into duplicate spending between government entities in its annual report, which has saved the government $667.5 billion since its first report in 2011, according to Open the Books. Congress, however, had made efforts to stifle the GAO’s mission, threatening to cut its funding right after its first report, and has been the slowest to adopt the GAO’s waste-cutting recommendations.
Read More‘Incompetence’: Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Much Money It Sent to Chinese Entities for Risky Virus Research
The Department of Defense (DOD) does not know how much money it directly or indirectly sent to Chinese entities to conduct research on viruses with pandemic potential, according to a new report by the DOD’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).
The OIG’s report found that DOD has supplied Chinese entities — whether directly or indirectly via subgrants — with taxpayer cash to research pathogens and the enhancement thereof, but the exact figure is unknown because of “limitations” in the DOD’s internal tracking system. Government funding for such research in China has come under scrutiny since the coronavirus pandemic, which multiple government entities believe started when an engineered virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory that was hosting U.S. government-backed gain-of-function research.
Read MoreCommentary: Trump Must Reform the Pentagon’s Acquisition Process
Forget the $500 hammer. The newest report from the Government Accountability Office puts the cost of America’s ailing Lightning II F-35 joint strike fighter at an estimated $2 trillion.
Have all those zeros bought the American taxpayer an invincible flying machine?
Read MoreBiden Admin Used Border Wall Funds on ‘Environmental Planning,’ Government Watchdog Says
The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”
Read MoreFeds Report $2.7 Trillion in Improper Payments in Two Decades
The federal government reported hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments last fiscal year and trillions over the last two decades.
According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal government reported $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023. The true number, though, is actually much higher, but federal reporting is often lacking.
Read MoreHouse Republicans Raise Alarm over China’s Potential Use of U.S. Funds in Military Research
House Republicans are urging the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog, to investigate what safeguards the National Institutes of Health has in place to ensure China does not use research funds to bolster its military or unethically use humans in research studies.
“Recent reports have raised concerns about the NIH’s ability to screen for national security issues,” the Republicans, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wa., wrote in a letter Tuesday to Government Accountability Office Comptroller Gene Dodaro.
Read MoreJohnson Proposes Ukraine Aid ‘Innovations’ Including Loans, Using Seized Russian Oligarch Money
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he expects the House to move forward with an aid package that would provide support for Ukraine with “some important innovations,” which may include loans for the war-torn Eastern European nation and using seized assets from Russian oligarchs.
On Fox News’ “Sunday Night In America” Johnson appeared receptive to a plan that would offer Ukraine a loan rather than aid, as Congress has already approved $113 billion in response to Russia’s invasion since February 2022, per the Government Accountability Office.
Read MoreCommentary: As Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Market Share Goes Up, So Does Its Taxpayer Funding
To borrow from an old saying, nothing can be certain except for death and taxpayer funding for the abortion industry. At the request of pro-life members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office released the latest round of data detailing how much taxpayer funding goes to Planned Parenthood and other international abortion organizations. From 2019 through 2021, Planned Parenthood in the U.S. received $1.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
Read MoreAbortion Groups ‘Siphoned’ Billions from Taxpayers over Three Years, Report Shows
Abortion advocacy groups received close to $2 billion in federal taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on Tuesday.
The GAO report was first requested in early 2022 by 142 congressional members led by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who underscored their concerns that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund abortion services. The report revealed that Planned Parenthood received approximately $1.78 billion in taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021 and is receiving increased federal support under the current Biden administration.
Read MoreSecurity Expert: Use Artificial Intelligence to Fight Benefits Fraud
Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households.
The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told all 50 states to plan to fight EBT skimmer fraud, which happens when bad actors install a card reader on top of a legitimate point of sale at a retail store.
Read MorePentagon Still Can’t Account for Roughly $220 Billion in Equipment, Gov’t Watchdog Says
The Department of Defense (DOD) has neglected to address its inability to keep track of at least $220 billion in equipment provided to government contractors, according to a Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Auditors first reported the Pentagon’s failure to account for government-owned equipment or material offered up for use to contracting agencies, also called government furnished property, in 2001, according to the report. DOD has made little improvement since then, increasing the risk that the Pentagon could accidentally overlook errors in the books.
Read More‘Nearly Doubled’ Foreign Investment in U.S. Farmland Comes Under Scrutiny
A coalition of 130 lawmakers sent a letter to a top federal watchdog raising the alarm about a spike in foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.
The letter calls for the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full review of that foreign ownership, its potential impact on trade, national security, food security and what the federal government is doing about it, if anything.
Read MoreBiden Reboots Obama-Era Green Energy Loan Program That Funded Solyndra and Cost Taxpayers Billions
The Biden administration has rebooted the Energy Department’s green loan program that lent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the Obama-era to the now-defunct green energy company, Solyndra, according to an announcement.
The Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Utah will receive the loan, leaving $2.5 billion for other clean energy projects, the Department of Energy (DOE) stated Wednesday.
Read MoreSupreme Court Hands Biden Admin Major Win for Climate Agenda
The Supreme Court denied a petition from 10 Republican-led states Thursday requesting it to block a key Biden administration climate policy.
The decision ensures that President Joe Biden’s so-called “social cost” of carbon policy — which assigns an estimated dollar value or cost to every ton of carbon emissions, according to the Government Accountability Office — can remain in place and be used for future federal permitting processes. The high court rejected states’ April 27 petition without giving a reason or listing which justices opposed it, according to a one-page filing published on the Supreme Court docket.
Read MoreTreasury Department Has Distributed Fraction of Emergency Rent Assistance with Just Days Until Evictions Begin
The Department of the Treasury has awarded a small fraction of the tens of billions of dollars Congress appropriated for pandemic rental assistance since January.
The federal government has expended less than $3 billion of the $46.6 billion in funds given to the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program, the Treasury Department announced on Wednesday. The U.S. doled out $1.49 billion from January through May and $1.5 billion in June to low-income renters nationwide, according to a spreadsheet published by the Treasury.
Read MoreGovernment Accountability Office Investigates Biden’s Decision to Halt Border Wall Construction
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has opened an investigation into President Joe Biden’s decision to freeze congressional funds allocated for construction of the southern border wall, Politico reported.
Senate Republicans requested the GAO investigate the Biden administration for potentially violating the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which prohibits the president from altering funding appropriated by Congress without approval, Politico reported. Republicans are referring to the $1.4 billion allocated for border wall construction in the $900 billion COVID bill passed by Congress in December.
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