A report authored by Republican Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn entitled “Shooting the Messenger: Congress Targets the Taxpayers’ Watchdog” warns that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) faces further budget cuts at the same time Congress has increased its own budget from “$1.2 billion to nearly $2.3 billion” — its highest level in history.
The Daily Caller asked Coburn why he thinks Congress wants to reduce the GAO’s funding.
Watch the interview with Coburn:
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“Because too often it embarrasses members of Congress and what they’re not doing and there’s a response to that and you know, the GAO, for every dollar they spend, we save 90 bucks, pretty good return,” he told TheDC on Capitol Hill Thursday.
“So, I think, one is we need to cut everybody but the GAO’s been cut 40 percent in the last 18 years and the one area where we need help on is oversight and working in the areas where there’s waste, fraud, abuse and duplication and they’re a great asset to Congress and I use them a lot and so do a lot of other members but those on the appropriations committee probably don’t like a lot of the stuff that the GAO puts out because it shows their weaknesses.”
Coburn’s report says “current budget proposals would cut GAO further by between 6.4 percent (House) and 7.6 percent (Senate).”
