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KEY TAKEAWAYS

The 2024 annual GAO report, “Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Billions of Dollars in Financial Benefits” found $71.3 billion worth of financial benefits in the year since its last report. 

It found 112 new matters and recommendations in 42 topic areas in which Congress or federal agencies can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government. 

Add that on to the $596.3 billion saved since 2011, and the $667.5 billion in cost savings represents what happens when government is held accountable for spending from the public’s pocketbook. 

The watchdog agency notes that the dollar figures noted for future savings are “rough estimates based on a variety of sources that considered different time periods and used different data sources, assumptions, and methodologies.” 

While the savings realized over 14 years is laudable and must continue, it must not be lost that about one-quarter of duplicated efforts that the GAO identified continue to waste taxpayer dollars. 

There are still 549 matters and recommendations that have not been addressed at all or have been only partially addressed. 

“Ignoring their responsibility to conduct oversight and determine if a given federal program is effective, members of Congress are often beholden to special interest groups and would rather continue funding an old program instead of eliminating it,” Sen. Coburn said in 2010. “At the same time, Congress will then create new programs that do the very same thing and do it just as poorly. There's no ineffective, inefficient program that the government can’t recreate at an even higher cost.”

Read the full report!