By Wallace White | Published at DailyCaller.com

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

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

“The federal government spends so much money, that literally no one can tell taxpayers the number of distinct programs that exist across the executive branch,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s thanks to the persistence of the late Sen. Tom Coburn that Congress is obliged to actually do something to root out duplicative, wasteful spending. If not for the Coburn Rule, Congress would be happy to continue shoveling money out the door, each committee operating as its own fiefdom making spending decisions in a vacuum.” (RELATED: Biden White House Staff Is Largest Since Nixon, Costs Taxpayers $225 Million)

Read the full article.