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87–737 PDF 2014

REDUCING WASTE IN GOVERNMENT: ADDRESSING 

GAO’S 2014 REPORT ON DUPLICATIVE FEDERAL 

PROGRAMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 8, 2014 

Serial No. 113–103 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 8, 2014 ................................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Gene L. Dodaro 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

APPENDIX 

GAO Response to Question for the Record from Representative Rob Woodall .. 52 

(1) 

REDUCING WASTE IN GOVERNMENT: ADDRESSING GAO’S 2014 REPORT ON DUPLICATIVE FEDERAL PROGRAMS 

Wednesday, April 8, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Issa, Mica, Turner, Chaffetz, Walberg, 

Lankford, Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Collins, Bentivolio, DeSantis, 

Cummings, Maloney, Connolly, Lujan Grisham, and Kelly. 

Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Majority Staff Member; Molly Boyl, 

Majority Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Lawrence 

J. Brady, Majority Staff Director; David Brewer, Majority Senior 

Counsel; Caitlin Carroll, Majority Press Secretary; Sharon Casey, 

Majority Senior Assistant Clerk; Drew Colliatie, Majority Professional Staff Member; Adam P. Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Tyler Grimm, Majority 

Senior Professional Staff Member; Mark D. Marin, Majority Deputy 

Staff Director for Oversight; Katy Rother, Majority Counsel; Laura 

L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; Jenna VanSant, Majority 

Professional Staff Member; Peter Warren, Majority Legislative Policy Director; Krista Boyd, Minority Deputy Director of Legislation/ 

Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Beverly 

Britton Fraser, Minority Counsel; and Juan McCullum, Minority 

Clerk. 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. 

Today’s hearing is on Reducing Waste in Government: Addressing GAO’s 2014 Report on Duplicative Federal Programs. 

Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of 

the committee at any time. 

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform exists to 

secure two fundamental principles: first, Americans have a right to 

know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent 

and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective Government 

that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government 

Reform Committee is to protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold Government accountable to 

taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get 

from their Government and that money is well spent. It is our job 

to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver 

2 

the facts to the American people and bring genuine reform to the 

Federal bureaucracy. 

Today, the Government Accountability Office released its fourth 

annual report on fragmentation, overlap, and duplications in Federal Government programs. The report identifies opportunities to 

consolidate Federal programs in order to both save taxpayers 

money and provide better services. 

Since the first report in 2011, the GAO has identified 188 problem areas over 400 actions that the Executive Branch agencies and 

Congress could take to address these problems. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro has joined us here today in order to discuss the 

report and answer the Committee’s questions. But there are some 

questions he won’t be able to answer. 

For instance, how does the duplication and waste in Federal Government cost and how much taxpayer money can we save if we follow the GAO’s recommendations? Through GAO estimates of cost 

savings, we find a range of tens of billions of dollars per year or 

more that we cannot provide a specific answer. Nor should we look 

for a specific answer. The American people expect, if there is tens 

of billions of dollars to be saved, that we begin saving them and 

score the savings after we have it. 

GAO found agencies often unable to tell them how much taxpayer money is actually being spent on a given federal program. 

This is part of a bigger problem. The American people deserve to 

know how much their money is being spent on any particular Federal program and how much of that money is being wasted. 

Fortunately, we have a big solution: the Digital Accountability 

and Transparency Act, or DATA Act. The DATA Act will bring rigorous reporting standards to Federal spending information; Federal 

agencies will be required to report on how they spend taxpayer dollars down to the program level. 

Improving transparency and accountability for Federal spending 

is not a partisan issue. I introduced the bipartisan DATA Act in 

both the 112th and 113th Congress along with my colleague, Ranking Member Cummings as its chief cosponsor. In both congresses 

the DATA Act was passed by the full House on a near unanimous 

basis. 

This week a bipartisan, bicameral compromised version of the 

DATA Act will be advanced in the United States Senate. My lead 

advocate there is Senator Warner, who in fact has worked together 

with our staff on both sides, the ranking member and my staff, to 

work out what we would call a hybrid, best of DATA Act. 

While there were some differences, they were resolved and, working together over three years, we believe we have the best of all 

answers for data of what can be done at this time, and I look forward to asking Mr. Dodaro more about his view on the current 

version of the DATA Act and what it would yield. 

In the testimony today I am quite sure that what we will find 

is there is low-hanging fruit; much of it is the same low-hanging 

fruit that we saw a year ago and a year before that. So as we hold 

this hearing today, I ask everyone to realize can we any longer 

enjoy inaction at a time when the budget could be completely, 

budget goals could be completely reached by this sort of savings? 

And I say that every time because the budget compromise of last 

3 

year was $23 billion over 10 years. Eliminating duplicative programs could save more than $23 billion over 10 years without costing any service or any reductions to anyone working or retired. 

With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank 

you for holding this hearing today and I thank you, Mr. Dodaro, 

for being here to testify about GAO’s new report. 

This report will focus on GAO’s fourth annual report on duplicative programs and opportunities for Federal cost savings. This 

hearing goes right to the heart of this committee’s jurisdiction. The 

rules of the House identify Government management and accounting measures as central pillars of the Oversight Committee’s jurisdiction. 

The committee’s jurisdiction also includes the overall economy, 

efficiency and management of Government operations and activities, including Federal procurement. In its 2012 report, GAO identifies procurement of information technology as an area of potential 

savings for taxpayers. GAO highlights the Obama Administration’s 

PortfolioStat initiative, which was unveiled by the Office of Management and Budget in 2012. 

PortfolioStat is designed to maximize IT investments by eliminating duplicative low value and wasteful IT spending. GAO estimates that PortfolioStat could save the Federal Government at 

least $5.8 billion through fiscal year 2015. 

Think about that. This one program could have the potential to 

save the Government nearly $6 billion. 

We have heard so much rhetoric recently about challenges and 

information technology investments related to the Affordable Care 

Act. We should be hearing more about the money the Federal Government can save through initiatives such as PortfolioStat. 

The House recently passed a bill sponsored by Chairman Issa 

and Subcommittee Ranking Member Connolly to improve information technology spending. That legislation, FITARA, demonstrates 

that there is a bipartisan support for making IT spending more effective and efficient. 

GAO’s work shows us that there are potential additional opportunities to improve IT spending through bipartisan oversight. GAO, 

for example, found that OMB’s initial cost savings estimates for 

PortfolioStat failed to include information from the Department of 

Defense and the Department of Justice because those agencies did 

not report information to OMB in the proper template. As a result, 

OMB’s estimated savings from PortfolioStat were half as much as 

GAO’s estimate, a difference of over $3 billion. The committee 

should ask DOD and DOJ why they failed to provide this information to OMB using OMB’s template. 

We should also ask OMB why it released estimates without information from those two agencies and without clearly disclosing 

that the data from those agencies was missing. I ask the chairman 

to join me in following up with those agencies to ensure that we 

have the best information possible about how to cut Government 

spending. 

4 

I want to take a moment to highlight an issue that was addressed following the committee’s hearing last year on GAO’s 2013 

report. 

In its 2013 report, the GAO criticized the Department of Defense’s fragmented approach to combat uniforms. Representative 

Tammy Duckworth introduced an amendment to address that issue 

and her amendment was enacted as a part of the National Defense 

Authorization Act of 2014. Representative Duckworth’s amendment 

required the Secretary of Defense to eliminate service-specific combat uniforms. The GAO estimates that all of the actions taken by 

the Executive Branch and Congress in response to GAO’s first 

three reports have yielded more than $10 billion in cost savings. 

GAO estimates that billions more in savings will be realized over 

the next 10 years. 

I want to applaud Representative Duckworth for her work following last year’s hearing. I hope we can all use the testimony here 

today to inspire us to take further action. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

It is now my pleasure to introduce the Honorable Gene Dodaro, 

the Comptroller General of the United States, who today is joined 

by quite an entourage of experts from the General Accountability 

Office. And I understand that many of them will be providing detailed information, so I would ask both Comptroller General 

Dodaro and those who may provide information to stand and take 

the oath. Please raise all of your right hands. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Chairman ISSA. Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Mr. Dodaro, since you are the only one that will be formally 

doing an opening statement, you may take such time as you may 

need, but your entire opening statement will be placed in the 

record. You are recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENT 

STATEMENT OF GENE L. DODARO 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you, Ranking Member Cummings, Congressman Mica, Congressman DesJarlais. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today 

to discuss GAO’s 2014 report. 

In this report, we identify 26 new areas, in addition to the 162 

areas we identified before. Eleven of the areas deal with overlap 

fragmentation and potential duplication in the Federal Government. Half of those 11 areas deal with the Department of Defense. 

One example I would provide today has to do with systems to control their satellite operations. What we found is that they are using 

more dedicated systems rather than shared systems over a period 

of time, in the last several years in particular during the last decVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:56 May 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87737.TXT APRIL
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ade, which means that there are fragmented systems and potentially duplicative. 

So they have one system for one satellite, as opposed to having 

one ground base system that would save hardware, software, and 

personnel costs that could service many satellites. We think implementation of our recommendations in this area could save millions, 

if not hundreds of millions of dollars. 

We also found duplication and overlap in special payments that 

are made for unemployment insurance and disability insurance. 

Those programs are meant to operate separately, but there is a potential loophole where we found that people can receive both benefits at the same time. In effect, the Federal Government is replacing lost income from these individuals twice, not just once, as intended. CBO has said that enactment of a legislation to close this 

loophole could save $1.2 billion over a 10-year period of time. 

We also found 15 other areas where there are opportunities for 

cost savings. One example I would cite is the alternative Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program. We found that there 

is $4.2 billion in already appropriated credit subsidy costs that are 

available, but the Department of Energy has not demonstrated a 

need for that money and we recommended that, unless they do, 

Congress could rescind all or a portion of the $4.2 billion. There is 

really not a lot of active applications for loans under that program 

currently. 

We also found that there are opportunities to collect amounts of 

delinquent taxes, for example, in not issuing passports to people 

who have delinquent taxes that are owed to the Federal Government. Right now, you can collect child support payment that way, 

but you can’t prevent somebody from getting a passport. CBO estimates that if a provision is passed to allow the State Department 

to withhold passports from people who owe delinquent taxes, the 

Federal Government could receive about $500 million in a five-year 

period of time. 

Also, there is the ability to potentially offset payments of delinquent taxes to Medicaid providers. Right now that is able to be 

done for Medicare, but not for Medicaid. Additional revenues could 

accrue to the Federal Government as a result of that. 

Now, in addition to identifying new areas, we tracked the 162 

areas that we recommended previously, and they had over 380 specific actions that needed to be taken. If I draw your attention to 

the chart that we have here, the dark blue on the bottom shows 

the increase in the amount of areas that have been addressed over 

time. So roughly, of the over 380 actions that have been recommended by us, about a third have been implemented. The partially implemented are another 44 percent, and about 19 percent 

haven’t been addressed at all either by the Executive Branch or the 

Congress. 

Now, the areas that have been addressed, as you mentioned, Mr. 

Chairman, we can score the savings that occur after the fact. The 

areas that have been addressed, over $10 billion has already been 

saved to the Federal Government because of actions by the Congress and by the Executive Branch, and those actions will also result in the future of about another $60 billion in savings over a period of time. And some of these areas, Mr. Chairman, as you menVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:56 May 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87737.TXT APRIL
6 

tioned, were used to help offset the sequester last year so that we 

were able to take targeted reductions without disrupting services 

to the public unnecessarily. 

So there has been action on many of the recommendations. Billions of dollars is being saved, will be saved, but there is a lot yet 

still on the table to be dealt with that could lead to a lot more savings and more efficient and effective operations for the American 

taxpayer. So we are dedicated to continuing to follow up on these 

areas, Mr. Chairman, and we thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Dodaro follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank you for 

this initiative. This really is making a difference. I would note, if 

you would put that slide back up, that the partially addressed, I 

note that some of that is moved out of committee; some of that is 

the Executive Branch has partially done something; some of it is 

that it moved out of one House, but not the other. 

When I look at the cross-tabs, I am very disappointed in the 

work we have done in the Congress; we have a strong tendency to 

have half done it in the Congress. And that sort of brings up a real 

point here, which is in order to assert these things, do you believe 

that we should begin moving packages of reforms out of the Congress, bundling, if you will, some of these duplications so as to 

make them bigger? Because many of the partially addressed are 

very minute and they are just not being picked up in one House 

or the other. 

Mr. DODARO. I think that is a very viable option, Mr. Chairman. 

I would note there have been separate bills introduced along the 

lines of what you are talking about, for example, to close this loophole between disability and the unemployment benefits being able 

to be received at the same time. There are other parts of the recommendations that we made where there has been bills introduced 

and even the President has supported them in his budget submission. 

So there is broad agreement. I think packaging them together as 

you suggest is a really good idea, and that is what in effect happened with the two-year budget deal. A number of these things 

were packaged. Some of them were recommendations from this report, for example, to increase the airport fees. That helped offset 

the need to have the sequester and avoid the broad-based, acrossthe-board cuts. So I am very supportive of what you suggest and 

whatever we can do to work with the Congress we would be happy 

to do so. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, perhaps the most important thing you can 

do is, once we work together to put together some packages, one, 

be willing to meet with each of the committees of jurisdiction, because as we package them they tend to go through more committees before they go to the floor; and, secondly, quite frankly, I need 

you to aggressively work with the CBO, because often what we believe is a savings is very hard to score, and the other day there was 

a vote on dynamic scoring, which, of course, does give the opportunity to assume more of this will actually occur rather than, as 

the CBO often does with these, we pass it, but unless it closes it 

on day one, it assumes that these legacy duplications will continue 

to occur. So that is sort of an inside baseball, but since we are all 

in the Leg Branch, hopefully we can do that. 

What would you say is the greatest growth area in duplication 

in this year? You obviously have ones that are recurring, ones that 

are legacy. But what concerns you the most as far as duplication 

growth in Government? 

Mr. DODARO. I think the areas, now that we have covered quite 

a bit of programs, is in the Defense area still. There is a lot of duplication. The services have their own health systems. We point out 

another one this year that we identified in the Army material command of duplicative information systems that are costing millions 

27 

of dollars to maintain. I mentioned the satellite control operations. 

We had one about the potential to streamline ground control operations for satellites and electronic warfare. And the list goes on 

with the Defense Department and I think it is particularly important in that area. So I would say that is the area that we continue 

to identify the most opportunities, and it is reflected in our report 

this year. 

Chairman ISSA. I want to thank you. Of course, we don’t have 

specific jurisdiction over what the Armed Services Committee has, 

but it is interesting that when you do something like the Joint 

Strike Fighter, what it means is that multiple branches get together and agree to have a common different aircraft. 

The ranking member mentioned Congresswoman Duckworth’s 

proposal on uniformity of uniforms. Do you want to give us an update on how you view that? Because it certainly has not occurred. 

And if you are familiar with it, also comment on the large amount 

of civilian contractors who also get uniforms provided, but we essentially pay for a myriad of different uniforms there. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. We are pleased with the actions that have 

been taken by the Department of Defense and by the Congress, as 

Congressman Cummings mentioned in the National Defense Authorization Act, to require it. DOD, their requirements would not 

only eliminate the duplication, but, as I mentioned last year, provide equivalent level of protection to our armed forces, which is 

more important than the money, even, in many respects. 

Chairman ISSA. You mean distinctive and invisible is an 

oxymoron? Distinctive, but invisible, as they often try to say the 

digital pattern somehow can all be seen easily, but not in fact be 

seen by the enemy? 

Mr. DODARO. In any sport, everybody on the same team ought to 

have the same uniform, and in this case this will ensure that that 

happens, and it will ensure that it happens very efficiently, as well, 

with the changes in the Defense Authorization bill. 

Now, one thing that we have learned over the years as it relates 

to the Department is to make sure they effectively implement these 

new provisions. And they have said that they will, so we will be 

following up. I also would note that the Army canceled its effort to 

develop its own uniform, which is about, I believe, about $4 billion 

that would be potentially saved, depending upon what their future 

actions would be. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

As I recognize the ranking member, I think back to when I was 

a young lieutenant and I wondered if the most valuable asset we 

would have in a combat was our forward air controller. And if he 

had a specific uniform that was easy for the snipers to pick out, 

whether I was safer as a result, but our mission was less safe. So 

I join with you in realizing that uniform in a combat situation 

should be as indistinguishable by the enemy as possible. 

I recognize the ranking member. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Dodaro, the report released today identified 

the management of Federal information technology investments as 

an area of potential cost savings. GAO estimates that the Federal 

Government could save $5.8 billion by fully implementing the Administration’s PortfolioStat. PortfolioStat was initiated by the OfVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:56 May 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87737.TXT APRIL
28 

fice of Management in 2012 to help agencies make better decisions 

about their IT investments. Can you explain how PortfolioStat 

helps agencies reduce wasteful spending? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. It provides a lot more information about the 

entire range of IT investments that are in the system, as opposed 

to the dashboard effort which focuses on individual major high-risk 

systems. Joel Willemssen is in charge of our IT practice; he can 

elaborate, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. Thank you, Ranking Member Cummings. It 

really is an initiative to look at commodity IT within the agencies. 

Commodity IT not necessarily being those mission-critical systems, 

but systems like enterprise IT systems, whether it be email or IT 

security; IT infrastructure, mainframes, desktop systems; and then 

business systems, financial management, human resources; and 

looking at them across the department, identifying where those 

kinds of systems are siloed, and then putting together plans to consolidate them and gain efficiencies, and with those efficiencies billions in savings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, GAO reports that OMB’s original cost savings estimates for PortfolioStat were significantly lower than they 

should have been because data from the Department of Defense 

and Department of Justice was not included in OMB’s estimate. 

Specifically, OMB estimated a potential cost savings of $2.53 billion, while GAO estimates that the program could save nearly $6 

billion through fiscal year 2015. 

GAO reports that the reason DOD and DOJ were left out of 

OMB’s estimate was because those agencies did not report their 

plans in the template that OMB was using to compile its overall 

estimate. Do you know why DOD and DOJ failed to properly report 

their data? 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. OMB went with, at the time, what it had without fully checking the reliability of the data. Accordingly, we have 

recommendations outstanding to both OMB and to the agencies to 

examine the reports before publicly disclosing them and disclose 

with that public release any data limitations that are present so 

that, for example, in the situation you mentioned, where DOD and 

DOJ were excluded, let’s identify those exclusions so that we know 

what the total potential savings would be. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So did OMB provide a reason for why it didn’t 

require DOD and DOJ to report their estimated cost savings before 

OMB publicly disclosed the overall? 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. We identified the deficiency for them, so we 

did not really ask the question; we wanted to move forward and 

say let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again pursuant to the recommendation. You have to check the report and disclose any limitations in the data. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The GAO reported in November 2013 that OMB 

officials had not yet decided what information from the 

PortfolioStat process would be made public. GAO’s report stated, 

‘‘Until OMB publicly reports data, agencies submit on their commodity IT consolidation efforts, including planned and actual cost 

savings, it will be more difficult for stakeholders, including Congress and the public, to monitor agencies’ process and hold them 

accountable for reducing duplication and achieving cost savings.’’ 

29 

GAO recommended that OMB improve the transparency and accountability of PortfolioStat. Specifically, the GAO recommended 

that OMB publicly disclose planned and actual data consolidation 

efforts and cost savings for each agency. 

What is the status of OMB’s implementation of GAO’s recommendation for greater transparency in the PortfolioStat process? 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. They have not yet implemented that recommendation. We continue to push OMB on it. We point to the 

dashboard as an excellent example of the value of transparency of 

identifying investments that are at risk and actions being taken to 

either terminate those investments or turn them around. Similar 

action could be taken with PortfolioStat in identifying the savings. 

Most importantly, one of our concerns is following through on the 

savings opportunities. It is one thing to estimate the savings; it is 

quite another to actually realize them. One of our concerns is making sure the pressure is sustained on that implementation. It is one 

reason we are very supportive of your FITARA Act, because irrespective of what efforts on the implementation side may wane in 

the Executive Branch, you would have legislation on your side to 

ensure that those efforts would still go forward. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. Dodaro, welcome back. A couple of questions. One of the 

things I found in the report that we have is I guess we started this 

about four years ago, these reports, and there have been over 300 

recommendations. I think you just added 26 or something like that, 

new ones. But only about 20 percent of them have been implemented. There is about 50 percent something has been done. That 

seems like a small number implemented, don’t you agree? 

Mr. DODARO. I definitely agree more should have been done by 

this point in time. I am hopeful that it will—— 

Mr. MICA. It is hard to get them moving. Refresh me, if you can, 

on the process. Now, you are reporting to us. You also report to 

each agency the findings. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. And then what is the follow-up? 

Mr. DODARO. Every year we follow up on actions that the Executive Branch has taken on our recommendations, and with the Congress where we have recommended statutory changes. 

You know, Mr. Chairman and ranking member, it might be a 

good idea if we looked at—we know how much can be saved, and 

there is very little of this implemented. It might be interesting to 

put an act in that gave them more power that the amount would 

be subtracted some way from their budget or something, that we 

take some automatic action. 

Right now, as you go plead with them, do you present this to the 

authorizers and the Appropriations Committee? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. You do? Okay. And they may or may not institute it 

through legislative means. But it doesn’t seem like you have a 

hammer to get it done, and I think we need to put some of those 

savings, or there be some penalty on the agency; some motivation, 

30 

light a fire under their fanny. It is a highly technical term, but 

something to get them to move on this. 

I was stunned to see we are up to $84 billion in IT in your report. 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. I thought the last figure I saw was $64 billion. The 

last estimate I had, if we consolidate, every time I get a report they 

find more data centers. I think they started out with 2,000; we are 

6,000, or I don’t know what the latest number. But they estimated 

at one of the hearings that about half of the amount, that was $64 

billion, now I don’t know if it is the same for the $84 billion, is 

wasted or could be saved. Is that still an actual assumption? Are 

we in the same neighborhood? 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. I probably would state that—— 

Mr. MICA. That is a year, right? Annual? 

Mr. WILLEMSSEN. It is about $80 billion a year reported, but, as 

we testified last year, that is an understated figure. 

Mr. MICA. It is huge. Also the same thing; everybody wants their 

own to get them to consolidate. It is just a bear to try to get them 

to do that. 

I just was thinking, too, now, me and Obama aren’t on the best 

terms, but he has said he doesn’t have to consider Congress; he has 

his mighty pen and he does executive orders. I just got a release; 

he just did two today. Has he done any of these by executive order? 

Mr. DODARO. I don’t know if it is by executive order. Some of the 

actions have been taken by the Executive Branch. 

Mr. MICA. Well, it might be something. But do you give a copy 

to the White House, too? 

Mr. DODARO. Oh, sure. Sure. And we make these all available to 

OMB. Actually, OMB put a guidance out that all the agencies are 

supposed to tell OMB what they are doing to address GAO’s recommendations in these reports. 

Mr. MICA. Okay, a couple things. You know my report, The Federal Government Must Stop Sitting on its Assets, we produced 

some years ago, and in that I list a lot of real property or vacant 

property that sits vital. Over the past two years I have asked the 

Office of Budget and Management for access to the Federal real 

property database so we can analyze and evaluate how efficiently 

GSA is using facilities. So far I have received no cooperation. 

Has GAO been granted access to the database? 

Mr. DODARO. We have looked at the database. We found—— 

Mr. MICA. Yes, but we found data in, and if it is garbage in, it 

is garbage out. 

Mr. DODARO. Right. 

Mr. MICA. We found that the information they give—they didn’t 

have an inventory of the buildings or properties. Then when we 

looked at some of the properties, some of the properties were derelict, defunct, or even taken off the rolls. You find the same things? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes, we found a lot of inaccuracies with the database. 

Mr. MICA. Billions of dollars in that area. We just had the post 

office in here. God forbid they should be doing expedited disposal 

of their billions of dollars worth of property. 

31 

Well, you do have information, then, from the database. We don’t 

have that; I have asked for it. And you found the same thing, that 

the information we have from that is not accurate. I see a lady. 

What is her name, raising her hand? I might want to call on her. 

Identify yourself for the mob here, please. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Kate Siggerud. 

Mr. MICA. Can you testify to that fact? Give me your name 

again; I didn’t catch it. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Kate Siggerud. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. We may want to follow up with you. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. There we go. That helps, doesn’t it? Kate 

Siggerud. That is much better. 

Yes. In fact, we did a report focused specifically on the quality 

of the data in that database in 2012, I believe it was; made a number of recommendations, and we would be happy to provide some 

information for the record on what has been implemented. 

Mr. MICA. I will have a staffer follow up with you. Appreciate 

that. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentlelady from New York. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Welcome. Nice to see you. How much do we spend in Federal contracts? I think two years ago it was $435 billion. What is the number for this year in Federal contracts? 

Mr. DODARO. Paul Francis is in charge of all our acquisition work 

across Government. You are in the ballpark. Paul? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. It has come down. It was over $500 billion. I 

think in the last year it is just under 500. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Last year. So now it is a little over $500 billion? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Little under. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Under $500 billion. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. And that is purchasing things. What about 

the contracts we have with the military and Defense and everything, the people who help us in Afghanistan, independent contractors, are they part of that $500 billion? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. Department of Defense has about two-thirds of that, so think about $300 billion in rough figures for Department 

of Defense and the rest for the civilian agencies. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I just came from a bill signing at the White 

House. Today is Equal Pay Day, and there will be a vote on equal 

pay bill in the Senate tomorrow, and the President signed two, 

really, contract bills, one that makes it against the law for Federal 

contractors to retaliate against employees if they tell another employee what their pay is. Did you know that that was the law now, 

that if you told someone your pay, you would be fired? You didn’t 

know that? But that is the law now. So that would change that. The other would call upon the contractors, the $500 billion contractors to put together an assessment of what people are paid in 

like jobs to see if there is pay discrimination. 

Are you supportive of those two initiatives? 

Mr. DODARO. We haven’t really looked at them, but—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. It is an Executive Order, so it is already in effect. 

If you were a czar here and you could come out with the top 

three things that you would do to make Government more efficient 

32 

based on the report that you just did, what would they be? And 

what would the savings be for the number one, number two, number three? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, first of all, I think one thing that needs to be 

done, the chairman alluded to it before, is passage of the DATA 

Act. I think the DATA Act is one of the biggest single things that 

could be done in order to provide more transparency on the costs 

of these program activities. So that being said—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. Exactly what would the DATA Act do? 

Mr. DODARO. It would standardize the data so you would be able 

to compare data across agencies, which you can’t do right now. It 

would also provide more consistent information and at a lower program spending level that we found to be a big obstacle in us identifying additional savings opportunities. 

Mrs. MALONEY. There are a number of things that I mentioned 

earlier that could save billions of dollars. One is to try to collect 

unpaid Federal taxes. These are taxes that are already due to the 

Federal Government, and to potentially not issue passports to people who have delinquent taxes; not pay Medicaid providers who 

aren’t paying their taxes. There are recommendations that we have 

had in order—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. We pass bills all the time saying that you cannot 

give a Federal contract to anyone who hasn’t paid their taxes. I 

think it was the chairman’s bill; it was one of the bills coming out 

of this committee. So right now the law is you can’t give a contract 

to someone who doesn’t pay their taxes. In other words, they get 

the contract, then they don’t pay their taxes? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, what happens is right now Medicaid is considered to be a State payment, not a Federal payment, so Congress 

has to pass a law to say that that particular area gets dealt with. 

That happens for Medicare providers, but not for Medicaid providers, even though the Federal Government is underwriting most 

of the Medicaid costs to the programs. Of course, the other areas 

is passports. 

We have also recommended equalizing taxes on different forms 

of tobacco. That is about almost a billion dollars a year that could 

be gained in that area. We have mentioned two or $3 billion that 

CBO has already estimated on Social Security offsets. These are 

areas where the State and local government employees don’t necessarily pay into the Social Security system unless the IRS reports 

the Social Security Administration these earnings that aren’t to be 

covered aren’t considered, so the CBO estimates it could be two to 

$3 billion a year in providing additional savings in those areas. 

So we have a lot—and none of those areas involve any cuts in 

services to anybody; they are all dealing with gaining revenues. We 

have a whole collection of recommendations on fees and immigration, agricultural quarantine, and other things that should be more 

appropriately covering—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. On immigration, people pay the fees when they 

come in, so how do you have a collection—— 

Mr. DODARO. Well, the fees aren’t enough to cover the costs the 

way they are supposed to, so we say they ought to better match the 

fees. Right now appropriated funds are being used, when fees 

should be raised in order to do that. 

33 

Mrs. MALONEY. What is the worst agency in terms of management? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, in our reports we have recommended changes 

in virtually every major Federal agency across the Federal Government, so everybody has issues that need to be dealt with. I mentioned earlier that the Department of Defense has a number of 

areas in fragmentation overlap and duplication. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, thank you. My time is up. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady and I thank the ranking 

member for pointing out executive order signing is not, in fact, a 

law signing. 

With that, we go to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 

DesJarlais. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome back, Mr. Dodaro. I know the answer to the question, 

but for the record please tell us how much taxpayer money we 

could save if we were able to implement every one of GAO’s recommendations today. 

Mr. DODARO. Tens of billions of dollars. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. And you mentioned earlier the importance of 

the DATA Act. How, over time, would that improve the reporting 

standards and improve the quality and accuracy of claims? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, right now you don’t really have data standards at all, and that Act would place responsibility with the Treasury Department so they could consolidate and develop data standards that would require them to work with stakeholders both within and outside of the Government; would also establish a pilot that 

would require recipient reporting models to be developed so the 

Government could get more accurate reporting as it did in the Recovery Act. So it would be a major step forward. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. While it is vital that we advance the DATA Act 

in order to strengthen spending information, implementation is certain to face some of the same challenges as the GPRA Modernization Act and other good Government reforms. What can we do to 

avoid the same pitfalls? 

Mr. DODARO. I think effective oversight by the Congress is absolutely essential. I think there ought to be more oversight and it 

ought to be focused more on how these acts could be implemented 

properly and consistently and diligently across the Government. 

We find continual problems in this regard. One area in the GPRA 

area that we pointed out is there is not enough effective consultation with the Congress and, as a result, there is not enough agreement on how to measure programs and activities. 

All the tools are in place now in many areas, and if you get the 

DATA Act in place and a couple other things, you will have all the 

information. It is just a matter of basically rolling up your sleeves 

and working hard to implement these things properly. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Can you discuss the status of any ongoing work 

GAO has with OMB or other Federal agencies to develop a comprehensive, well-defined, uniform list of all Federal programs? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. This is another area where the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 required OMB to publish an inventory of all 

Federal programs. We have ongoing work looking at the inventory. 

It is really not helpful in identifying and comparing programs 

34 

across Government. OMB gave the agencies a lot of flexibility in 

how to define the inventory, so some defined them on budgetary accounts, others on outcomes or different types of bases, so it is really 

not comparable right now; it only includes the 24 major departments and agencies, it doesn’t include the rest of the Federal Government. So both of those areas need to be addressed. So we really 

do not yet have a complete comparable inventory of Federal programs across the Federal Government. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. What is a reasonable time frame to expect getting a complete list? 

Mr. DODARO. It should be able to be done soon, within a year. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. How do we achieve that? 

Mr. DODARO. I think you have to put pressure on OMB and the 

agencies to develop that information. I mean, basically they are 

getting the money to run these programs; they ought to be able to 

provide a comprehensive inventory. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. GAO’s work shows that building ownership is 

often more cost-effective in Federal Government than leasing. However, GSA continues to rely heavily on costly operating leases to 

meet the long-term needs. At the same time, GSA’s current capital 

planning lacks transparency and makes it difficult to estimate 

long-term needs, prioritize projects, and evaluate alternatives to 

leasing, thereby inhibiting informed decision-making. 

In your report, GAO identifies millions of dollars worth of potential savings if GSA were to improve its capital planning. Can you 

elaborate on the recommendations GAO makes to that effect? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. First, the GSA has to provide lease 

prospectuses to the Congress on high-value leases. Now, while the 

high-value leases last year was, I think, $2.79 million a year on 

these leases, they aren’t including a lot of information about alternatives. We looked at 218 operating leases. In 191 cases they didn’t 

have information about alternatives that could be made in order to 

save money for the Federal Government either by buying the property, as opposed to leasing it. So a lot of the information isn’t available and transparent to the Congress to be able to do this. 

These high-value leases, while they are only 3 percent of the individual leases, account for one-third of all the lease costs to the 

Federal Government, so we recommended that they start including 

alternative analysis in these prospectuses to provide to the Congress so that you can begin quantifying how much would be saved 

by purchasing the property rather than leasing property. We found 

where the Federal Government is leasing some property for 40 

years and also putting in substantial amounts of money into providing security upgrades, which we will never be able to recoup 

during the period of time. 

For the operating leases prospectuses that had information in 

them about alternatives, there were, I believe, hundreds of millions 

of dollars that could have been saved had the alternatives been 

used other than leasing. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay, I see we are out of time. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentlelady from New Mexico, Ms. Grisham. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 

for having this hearing. 

35 

And thank you, Mr. Dodaro. I really appreciate it. I think there 

is lots of work to do to make not only better and productive decisions that are sustainable to make sure these programs are effective and not redundant and not wasteful, but also making sure that 

they are really focusing on efficacy and either making decisions 

about keeping that program, if it is a priority, and fixing it and 

being clear about that and accountable, or eliminating that program and moving to something else that might meet that priority. 

And I want to talk about one of those programs. 

New Mexico has one of the highest foreclosure rates still in the 

Country. In 2010, during the height of the crisis, one out of every 

46 homes was going through a foreclosure process in Albuquerque. 

There are thousands of homeowners in New Mexico who tried to 

receive help from the Federal Housing Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, and actually, before coming to Congress, I helped folks in a prior life to navigate it, and 

I found it to be the most confusing, difficult, ineffective effort of any 

program I have ever been associated with and was quite disappointed, and still am. 

You find in your report that the Federal Housing Administration 

has failed to collect adequately and analyze any performance data 

of its foreclosure mitigation programs, including HAMP. Am I correct in that? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So the Federal Housing Administration has 

not conducted any analyses on the effectiveness of their foreclosure 

mitigation programs, the same programs that are, frankly, the only 

lifeline that my constituents went through to find help and stay in 

their homes. And I might add that very few of them, and, unfortunately, because we don’t have the data, it is anecdotal, it doesn’t 

appear that it has helped many New Mexicans. Do you have any 

information that would provide me a little better sense about 

whether HAMP was helpful or not? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. I am going to ask Orice Williams Brown, who 

is in charge of our work in that area, to respond. I would note, 

though, we also found problems at VA and Agriculture, as well. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Let me start with the report that you are 

referring to actually spent much of its focus on FHA. In terms of 

Treasury and the HAMP program, they actually did a little better 

job in terms of collecting information. That said, we have chronicled for the last five years all of the problems associated with the 

HAMP program, and there are a number of them that we identified 

with how the program was rolled out overall and the extent to 

which it has actually helped homeowners. 

In terms of FHA and its efforts to deal with foreclosures, we 

found that FHA needs to do a better job collecting information, because if you look at the data and you look at cases of re-defaults, 

it is important for agencies to look at efforts that they have taken 

to address foreclosures and to drill into the data to find out which 

approaches work and which approaches have been less effective, 

rather than just continuing to take action; and we actually found, 

with FHA, that if they focus on reducing the payment by a significant amount, we found that about 30 to 49 percent tended to be 

the sweet spot in terms of having a lower re-default rate. 

36 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And I appreciate that, but you raise a very 

important point. Five years of collecting data, and that is five years 

where people are not, arguably, getting the assistance that they 

need by that program. And I can tell you that in my State it is a 

significant issue, and I get as many complaints about HAMP and 

the other mitigation programs as I do about dealing with the lending institutions and the loan servicers and the attorneys. They are 

not distinguished. 

What I really want is an effective program that meets the needs 

of the constituents, but do you also believe that getting this data 

and having an effective program would save the Federal Government money if we were administering that program more effectively? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. We found with FHA that, yes, that would 

be the case. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And you have actually answered my last 

question, which is the lack of this program evaluation and performance data, that it is a common problem among programs and agencies that the GAO analyzes. 

Mr. DODARO. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, this is one area 

where I think effective congressional oversight would be enormously helpful. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. And I am about out of time, but, Mr. Chairman and for the folks testifying today, it would also, I think, mitigate tons of consumer fraud in the interim that is now certainly 

pervasive in my State, because folks have no idea what is a credible program, who is doing what, how you get through. The response times are slow. It is an arduous process at best, and it is 

probably good that I am out of time to give you other examples and 

adjectives about how I feel. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. You know, you sound like a Republican complaining about Government bureaucracy. You better be careful. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I think a little bipartisan work, Mr. Chairman, on these issues would be a very good thing. 

Chairman ISSA. I certainly agree. 

We now go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Bentivolio. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Good to see you again, Mr. Comptroller. 

Mr. DODARO. Good to see you. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. More than 83,000 persons remain missing from 

past conflicts in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and 

Persian Gulf. 

Can we show the first slide, please? 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. As you can see, the missing persons are spread 

over every continent and under any command. 

Please show slide two. Thank you. 

[Slide. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Understandably, this is a complex mission involving many offices. As you can see from this slide, the missing 

persons accounting community consists of 11 offices in 8 organizations that report through different lines of authority. Is the accounting community too fragmented? How do the soldiers and civil 

37 

servants working in those offices feel about the lack of a single 

chain of command? 

Mr. DODARO. I think that everyone wanted greater clarity that 

we had talked with, and we pointed this area out. Fortunately, Secretary of Defense Hagel just recently, within the last week or so, 

announced that a new organization to have a more unified command over these issues which would simplify things. So we are 

hopeful and will be watching how this is implemented to see if it 

will correct this problem. We found it was very disjointed; it wasn’t 

operating very effectively; it really wasn’t accomplishing as much 

as it should have in order to locate the remains of these prisoners 

of wars and missing persons of action. So I don’t think it was providing effective service to them, and hopefully this new organization will make a change. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Can we have slide 3, please? 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. As you can see, on average only 72 persons are 

identified each year; no more than 100 missing persons have been 

identified in a single year. In 2009, the deputy secretary of defense 

directed the accounting community to build the capability to identify 200 persons a year. 

How is the fragmentation within the accounting community hindering progress towards this goal? 

Mr. DODARO. I would like to ask Cathy Berrick, who is head of 

our Defense Capabilities and Management team, to answer. 

Ms. BERRICK. Thank you for the question. This is actually an 

open issue. Although, as Gene mentioned, the Department of Defense recently announced the reorganization to streamline the eight 

organizations within DOD that manage this function, DOD still 

has to put forth a strategy to meet a new congressional goal to 

identify 200 missing persons a year by the year 2015. As you mentioned, right now they are identifying about 72 to 74 missing persons a year, so they have quite a bit of work to do. 

As a result of the fragmentation in these organizations within 

DOD and not having a clear line of authority, we had two different 

offices develop two separate plans on how they were going to 

achieve that goal and there was a lot of conflicting information in 

those. So we hope that with this reorganization these entities can 

now work together to come up with a plan to achieve that goal of 

identifying 200 persons per year. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. You answered my next question. I appreciate 

that. 

Can we put up slide 4? Slide 4, please. 

[Slide.] 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. As you can see, it is clear that the accounting 

community is not lacking for Federal funding. From 2008 to 2012, 

the accounting community obligations increased from $76 million to 

$132 million. DOD has also indicated that additional funds will be 

reprogrammed towards this goal. 

With the growth in funding, it is not clear to me that additional 

dollars will improve performance in this important mission. What 

concrete steps is DOD taking to improve the culture within the accounting community so that disputes between offices don’t derail 

community-wide planning efforts? 

38 

Ms. BERRICK. In terms of the funding needed to meet this mission, it is really imperative that DOD complete a plan on how they 

are going to achieve the new goal to identify 200 missing persons 

per year. Right now they are identifying about half of that, so they 

need to figure out whether they need additional resources or other 

mechanisms to support meeting that goal. So in terms of budget I 

think the next most important step is for DOD to complete their 

plan so that can inform decisions about what their budget needs 

are. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Okay, when you examine each department and 

how they duplicate efforts, reading the briefing, I was wondering 

out of the 83,000, I got the impression there were offices working 

on the same area or same individual that was missing. Do you 

know how they differentiate out of the 83,000 missing? Do they assign like case files and can anybody access those case files within 

those eight agencies or eight teams? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired, but you can 

answer. 

Ms. BERRICK. That is part of the problem. The roles and responsibilities for those eight individual offices isn’t clear so, as a result, 

we identified overlap in four areas. One is in artifact and analysis, 

another is in research and analysis, another area is investigations, 

and the fourth is in family outreach. For example, there are two 

labs within those eight organizations, and just to give you an example of the overlap, we identified that one lab had already closed 

cases, not aware that the second lab actually had those in the 

queue to work. So it has resulted in problems like that. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, can I make an inquiry, just an inquiry? 

Chairman ISSA. Very quickly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. We have votes on the floor right now. 

Chairman ISSA. Yes, we do. We are coming back. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So you are going to break. 

Chairman ISSA. We are going to break. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady from Illinois. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your flexibility this morning. I appreciate it. 

The report GAO released today focuses on two specific propertyrelated issues leading to Government waste. One of those is the 

Federal Government’s use of property leases. GSA was appropriated $5.2 billion to provide 193 million square feet of rental 

space to Federal agencies and privately owned buildings, is that 

correct? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Ms. KELLY. What specific best practices does GAO recommend 

GSA uses to evaluate whether to lease space or to buy it, since 

there were comments about we could be wasting taxpayers’ money? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. We recommended that they, first, in developing lease prospectus, particularly for high-cost leases, do an alternative analysis to say would it be cheaper to buy or cheaper to 

lease; to get more specific information from the agencies about how 

39 

long they are going to need the property to be leased over a period 

of time; and to develop that analysis. 

I would ask Kate Siggerud if she would add anything to that. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. There was one additional recommendation that 

we made in that report, and that was for these high-value leases 

that have existed for a long period of time, to develop a ranking 

or criteria system to move some of those high-cost leases into ownership situations, and then present that clearly to the Congress so 

that choices could be made. 

Ms. KELLY. Would an example of that be the Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. We did have that as an example in the report, 

yes. 

Ms. KELLY. GAO’s report also focuses on cost savings related to 

real estate owned, or REO, properties owned by the Federal Government after foreclosure. A number of agencies own these properties, including the Departments of VA, Agriculture, and enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. GAO, however, singled out 

the Federal Housing Administration as taking the most time to dispose of foreclosed properties, about 340 days. Mr. Dodaro, that would be nearly $1 billion per year in savings 

from one agency alone, is that correct? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. There would be quite a bit of savings in that 

area if they could reduce that size. Ms. Brown will explain how 

that would happen. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Part of the process that made FHA a little 

different has to do when they actually take ownership of the property. And in the case of the enterprises and VA, rather than waiting to go through the process of redemption and actually having a 

free and clear title, they wait until that process is complete before 

FHA actually takes ownership, and that is part of the reason that 

they have a longer process. But they also take longer to actually 

sell the properties. 

Ms. KELLY. GAO notes that FHA’s oversight over the contractors 

is usually maintain and dispose of properties have weaknesses. 

How does GAO recommended that FHA improves its oversight of 

these contractors? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. We outlined a series of recommendations 

for FHA to improve their oversight. One of the things that we 

found they were deficient in had to do with actually tracking the 

performance of the contractors for the various properties. That is 

one area that we recommended that FHA focus on, and also improve the guidance that they give to their regional offices to ensure 

that the contractors are being consistently overseen across the regions. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LANKFORD. [Presiding.] Thank you. 

Mr. Dodaro, thank you for being here. I am going to get a chance 

to run through some of these quick questions. We are about to 

break for a recess in just a moment. I want to bounce a couple 

questions off before we do in this process. 

You have some serious concerns on the Medicaid demonstration 

projects. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars. Can we 

40 

talk through a little bit about this? The demonstration projects 

have a requirement to be budget-neutral to be a demonstration 

project. Are the demonstration projects budget-neutral? 

Mr. DODARO. We looked at 10 demonstration projects and found 

problems with four that we believe they were not budget-neutral. 

Mr. LANKFORD. State-specific for them? Are you talking about 

four specific States or four—— 

Mr. DODARO. Four specific States. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. 

Mr. DODARO. In total, we found about $32 billion that was being 

paid to the demonstration projects that we believe was in excess of 

the budget neutrality provision. They were using outdated information in some cases, and in some cases they were accounting for 

costs prospectively that the State had never retrospectively spent 

money on. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay, so the State and the Federal Government have a partnership in this as far as the funding of that. The $32 

billion for the four States, is that all the Federal portion or is that 

State and Federal portion combined? 

Mr. DODARO. That is State and Federal portion combined. I think it was about $21 billion was the Federal portion. I will correct that, 

if I am wrong, for the record. 

Mr. LANKFORD. So is that in a single year or is that over multiple 

years? 

Mr. DODARO. I believe it is over five years. 

Mr. LANKFORD. All right, so $21 billion over five years that has 

been spent that does not meet the basic criteria under law for 

being budget-neutral. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, the budget neutrality is not by law, it is by 

HHS policy. And one of our recommendations is for the Congress 

to require it be done by law and instruct the secretary to change 

their procedures to make sure that it is implemented that way. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. The same issue with the Medicare Advantage demonstration program that we have talked about in the past. 

Two and a half years ago $8.3 billion was moved into a Medicare 

Advantage demonstration program. A part of that is obviously 

budget neutrality and also a report to come back to show what they 

are demonstrating. Have you seen a report of what they were trying to demonstrate with that Medicare Advantage program? 

Mr. DODARO. Well, we had concerns about whether or not the 

demonstration, the way it was structured, could conceivably ever 

demonstrate what it was intended to demonstrate, and basically 

those years have run out now. We have recommended every year 

that Congress rescind some of the money there that would be put 

in place, but they haven’t. The demonstration is over now. I don’t 

know if we have looked at the final report or not. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Did they submit a final report of what they were 

trying to demonstrate with that $8.3 billion transfer of funds? 

Mr. DODARO. I don’t know, Congressman. I will get an answer for 

you and give it for the record. But our point was the way it was 

structured, with data that occurred beforehand—first of all, as I recall, they were giving money to mediocre performing plans, and not 

just high performing plans, and encouraging people to improve 

their performance. So by the structure and how it was set up, we 

41 

believe it would not have been able to demonstrate that it was having an effect because so many people were already receiving the 

payment. 

But I will follow up and get you a detailed answer. 

Mr. LANKFORD. It was not designed to demonstrate anything; it 

was designed to carry over Medicare Advantage passed the election, so there wouldn’t be serious cuts to Medicare Advantage until 

after the election was over. But that is a different issue on it. 

One last thing, then we are going to recess. VA and DOD have 

purchased prescription drugs together in the past to provide greater efficiency. Have you seen any kind of trending? They have discussed it often again, about trying to get back together. That seems 

to be around $500 million they could save a year, just to be able 

to combine their purchasing power. While there has been discussion, is there any movement that you have seen towards that? 

Mr. DODARO. I will get you a specific answer, but last time I recall we looked at it they weren’t taking full advantage of the potential purchasing power of both entities, but I will get you a specific 

update. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Okay. Thank you very much for being here. 

We are going to recess for a moment because of votes, and then 

the committee will come back in order as soon as the votes have 

completed. 

Mr. DODARO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LANKFORD. We are going to recess. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. 

Mr. Dodaro, we will shortly have other individuals coming back, 

but I thought I would take a moment. I guess you would be considered nonpartisan since it is just you and me. The Healthcare.gov 

Web site, in combination with the other parts of the Affordable 

Care Act, some 30-some separate Web sites that were done by 30- 

some separate States at a cost, let me rephrase that, a grant of no 

less than $100 million, and sometimes over $300 million apiece. 

Have you looked into, if you will, the cost and duplication involved 

in that? 

Mr. DODARO. We have been asked by a number of parties and 

the Congress to look at Healthcare.gov, a lot of aspects of it, and 

also the State Web sites, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. So we 

will be looking at those issues both in terms of how they were designed and what kind of investment policies, testing that they did. 

And while we haven’t been asked to specifically look at the potential for overlap and duplication, you raise a good point. So I will 

make sure that we look at that aspect of it as we cover this issue. 

I thank you for raising that. 

Chairman ISSA. And I appreciate it. You have a big job in looking 

at all aspects of that and I wanted to make sure that we did not 

look at the Affordable Care Act and Healthcare.gov and the other 

sites as an event that we can do anything about. The money is 

spent; the history is written. 

But legislatively this committee would have the authority to prohibit grants if they were redundant. So as you are looking at, if you 

will, this propensity to give everyone a little bit of buy-in money, 

which there were plenty of costs that could have been provided in 

42 

grants, but in this case the building of IT, when clearly, once you 

got to the second State and the third State and the fourth State, 

any level of duplication was pure waste. 

And in the case of, for example, Maryland, versus Kentucky, 

versus other States, we also have this odd situation in which you 

have failures and successes in some cases just because they didn’t 

know what the other entity was doing. 

So as you look at it, look at it in a mind to a proposed legislative 

fix that would prohibit any future Government in any area, not 

just health care or something as this example, from issuing grants 

that would duplicate in State after State without a justification. 

Sometimes there are justifications, but without a specific justification. Because I believe that this was well intended, but if anyone 

had sat down and said you are going to spend over $5 billion to 

produce essentially duplicate copies of Web sites that all do the 

same thing, they would have said, my goodness, we can spend 

three or $4 billion of those dollars somewhere else and do better. 

So I would appreciate that. 

I will now, as I said, go to Dr. Gosar for five minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you very, very 

much, Mr. Dodaro. 

A couple things, statements. Compared to Fannie and Freddie 

Mac, FHA saw about 4 to 6 percent lower returns on disposition 

of foreclosed properties and took 60 percent longer to dispose of 

those properties, average of 340 days versus 200 days. And there 

are a number of things that Fannie and Freddie do that FHA does 

not do. 

So can you put up slide number 1 for me? 

[Slide] 

Mr. GOSAR. FHA real estate owned properties performed behind 

Fannie and Freddie. GAO analysis shows that FHA REO properties are 4 to 6 percent behind there. When it takes FHA about 

60 percent longer to sell an REO property, how does this affect 

FHA’s performance to get rid of that property in disposition? 

Mr. DODARO. I will ask Ms. Brown to respond. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. It impacts the return on the property, so 

it is the amount of how much they actually spend and then actually how much they get back. So it affects their overall return on 

the property. 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes, but if we were to follow Fannie and Freddie in 

that same disposition, we could have seen as much as $400 million 

in costs incurred, but saved as much $600 million. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Seems like a very good balance line, wouldn’t it be? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Excuse me? 

Mr. GOSAR. It would be a very good balance line? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Yes. How does FHA’s disposition process differ from 

the disposition process of the enterprises or the private industry? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. We found that it differs in a couple of 

areas. One, it differs on the front end when FHA actually takes 

possession of the property and starts the sale process, the management and the sale. It also differs in terms of how they go about getting their initial sale price on the property. FHA tends to go with 

43 

a single price; the enterprises and VA tend to get a number of 

prices to come up with a sale price. 

They also differ in terms of how they reduce the sales price if a 

property has been on the market for a while. FHA takes an approach that they have a price and they will reduce the sale price 

of the property the same, regardless of where that property exists 

in the Country. The enterprises and VA will take a different approach, they will actually consider market factors in terms of reducing the price of a sales property. 

Mr. GOSAR. And don’t the other entities also look at maintaining 

and changing that out? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. And that is a big deal, isn’t it? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. And what prohibits the FHA from doing that? What 

is one of the prohibitive factors in maintenance and improving the 

lot? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Well, we aren’t aware of anything that 

prohibits them from doing that; it is something that we recommended that they take a look at in terms of the difference in 

their properties and the others. FHA indicated in their comments 

back to us that they weren’t sure that that would actually increase 

their ability if they did a certain minimal maintenance. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, I am going to stop you there because we have 

limited time. The GAO’s 2013 report, HUD reported the compliance 

with Davis-Bacon, made it difficult to engage in projects to make 

necessary repairs to increase sale returns. Fannie and Freddie do 

not need to comply with Davis-Bacon. So there is another aspect, 

is there not? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Well, there are costs associated with it, 

but when we did our analysis we actually controlled for geographic 

differences in terms of so if you are dealing with a different geography and the labor associated with maintaining a property in one 

community versus another. Those were controlled for in terms of 

how the enterprises fared versus FHA. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, then why don’t other entities cite that barrier? 

I mean, it sounds if we are recreating the wheel, we ought to look 

at the wheel prior to that, wouldn’t we? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. GOSAR. I mean, Davis-Bacon is riddled with fraud, right? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Well, in that 2013 report we didn’t drill 

in on Davis-Bacon. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, maybe we should, because in that GAO report 

it actually showed that the calculations for Davis-Bacon were 100 

percent fraudulent. A hundred percent. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. In the 2013 report? 

Mr. GOSAR. 2012, I am sorry. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. GAO’s 2012 report? 

Mr. GOSAR. Absolutely. 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. Okay. 

Mr. GOSAR. I mean, just in your calculation from the Department 

of Wages and Labor and moving it to the Bureau of Statistics, GAO 

hardly likes Davis-Bacon, do they? 

44 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. This body of work didn’t focus on DavisBacon; it could be another body within GAO. 

Mr. GOSAR. I mean, when you start looking at some of the implications, particularly on buildings and maintenance of buildings, 

and increasing aperture, this is a barrier, and it cites it that this 

is a barrier; and we ought to be looking at this because CBO says 

that if we just change the calculations, we could save between $10 

and $25 billion a year just by calculating Davis-Bacon properly. 

And part of the problem with utilizing Davis-Bacon is there is no 

transparency, no one knows how it is calculated. So that would 

make it very easy for us to see an increase in sales and looking at 

the taxpayers’ dollars a little bit better. 

Mr. DODARO. We will take a look at that issue. 

Mr. GOSAR. Okay. 

I am running out of time, so I will yield back to the chair. 

Mr. COLLINS. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes himself for questions. 

It is always good to have you, Mr. Dodaro. This is the part for 

me, as a freshman, and the meetings that we have. One, I love the 

reports that you have and the reports that are put out. We talked 

about this last year. I am in the military. That part on military 

uniforms is, again, unfathomable in most comprehensive reports, 

especially when you look at it from a position of other things that 

we need. And I think when you spend those dollars in certain ways 

it just presents an issue for many of us as we look at this and say 

why do we have these duplication of products; why do we have 

these services; why are these things not being done. 

So in that line I have some things I want to talk to you about 

and some issues that I think maybe from the chairman’s earlier 

comments today and many other’s earlier comments, how do we get 

to fix this. For my district, we are about fixing issues; we are about 

fixing problems. I did not come to Washington to be a spotlight and 

simply shine a light and say here is a problem, there is another 

problem. I think the way we rebuild with the American people is 

we say here is a problem, here is how we fix it; here is a problem, 

here is how we fix it. 

In looking at that, I do have a couple questions for you. 

As I understand it, the GAO started issuing these reports in 

2011. I want to know how many of these recommendations have 

been fully addressed. 

Mr. DODARO. Of the over 389 specific actions that we have made, 

123 have been fully addressed, so it is about a third. 

Mr. COLLINS. Would that be fully addressed? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. 

Mr. COLLINS. Completely. So from what we are gathering, it is 

about 19 percent. 

Mr. DODARO. Well, it depends on—there is 162 areas. 

Mr. COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. DODARO. If you take the areas, that is about 19 percent, 20 

of the areas. But if you go down to the specific actions it is a little 

bit more. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, again, that is completed actions. I know there 

are a lot that have partial actions, other things like that, but I am 

looking at completed, because when you look at this, to explain this 

45 

back home, when you go home and you see these or they take the 

GAO reports, because I have a lot of folks in the 9th District of 

Georgia that look at these reports, they see them put out, and they 

say, well, why can’t you do this? And we say, well, that is just a 

little bit. Well, it means a lot. This hundred million here, hundred 

million there, that is actually real money in the State of Georgia, 

especially in the 9th District. So they don’t understand how we 

can’t do this or come together. 

I recall the words of Senator Coburn. He came before this committee just a few months ago and he said that he never dreamed 

that the GAO would have published these reports and Congress 

wouldn’t embrace all the recommendations. He said that he 

thought that these reports would embarrass Congress into action. 

It is not the GAO’s fault; it is Congress’s inability to address these 

types of issues. 

And that is the reason that I am going to, in just a few days, 

introduce the Commission on Accountability and Review of Federal 

Agencies, the CARFA, Act. This is not new; we have made some 

changes to it, but we are bringing it back up. This will establish 

a results-orientated bipartisan commission made up of seven official members appointed by the President and Congress, one each 

appointed by the Majority and Minority leaderships of both Houses 

and three appointed by the President, as well as four non-voting 

ex officio members, members of Congress, two from each House. 

The Commission’s charge will be to recommend: one, realignment 

where a function can be performed by two or more agencies or programs and can be consolidated; two realignment or elimination of 

any agency or program that has wasted Federal funds; and, three, 

elimination of any agency or program that has completed its purpose, become irrelevant, or failed to meet its objectives. Any savings that result from the consolidation or cancellation of programs 

will be applied to offset the cost of the Commission for deficit reduction. 

The findings and suggestions of this Commission will have privileged status before the House and the Senate, and this is important, and will be considered in their entirety without amendment, 

which, by forcing Congress to vote up or down on a Commission’s 

recommendation, the congressional log-rolling that normally protects spending and waste can be circumvented and backroom deals 

become much less effective. 

Farm Bill negotiations over the USDA’s duplicative catfish inspection program point to this perfectly. In 2012, Senators McCain 

and Kerry offered an amendment to the Farm Bill, which was approved by voice vote. The GAO, your organization, included this 

program in its list of duplicative programs in its 2013 report. I remember you and I having this discussion last year. I couldn’t understand. Like I said, you inspect catfish at my place, you catch 

them, you inspect them, you put them in the bucket. Okay? There 

is bigger issues here. I know, but we have a protection issue going 

on. 

In the most recent Farm Bill, there was considerable effort by a 

vast majority of members in Congress to repeal this program. Unfortunately, due to the effects of several influential members, the 

program was included in the bill and another defeat for GovernVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:56 May 09, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87737.TXT APRIL
46 

ment efficiency. CARFA is designed specifically to address issues 

like this one. 

So not only urging members who are watching now or listening 

to become a cosponsor on this, I would like to talk with you just 

a moment about actually looking at these recommendations and 

how we can work together. Comment on Mr. Coburn’s discussion 

when he said that he thought it would embarrass us into action. 

And just on more of a personal level, has it surprised you, the lack 

of inaction on these items? 

Mr. DODARO. At one level, I have been concerned that there 

hasn’t been enough movement of legislation that has been introduced. I mean, in many of these areas legislation has been introduced and has, in some cases, advanced, but it hasn’t been passed, 

even in cases where the President also agrees and has submitted 

it in the budget proposal. So where there is broad agreement and 

legislation has been introduced between certain parties and the 

Congress and the President, yes, I have been surprised that there 

hasn’t been quicker action when those circumstances present themselves. 

On areas where we have pointed out multiple programs across 

multiple agencies that touch upon many different parts of the Executive Branch and various committee jurisdictions, no, I haven’t 

been that surprised that there hasn’t been fast action on those 

areas. 

So it is kind of mixed depending upon the areas. There are a lot 

of areas I would consider to be very straightforward and broad 

agreement; there, I am perplexed as to why there hasn’t been more 

action. But in some of the more entrenched areas where there are 

constituencies and longstanding Federal programs and interest 

groups and others, I am, quite frankly, not surprised that more 

hasn’t happened. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I think that is a concern for all of us and 

maybe one of the reasons why we are addressing it, is because Congress hasn’t acted, and we come with another reasons. You hear 

enough speeches about cut this, cut that. That never happens. It 

sounds more like my excuse for my children not cleaning their 

rooms at this point. 

With that, I will yield to the gentleman from Arizona for five 

minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. I want to continue where I left off. 

In 2002, GAO recommended that HUD establish unified property 

custody as a priority for FHA. Now, more than a decade later, FHA 

still does not have consistent custody over the foreclosed properties. 

Today’s report indicates there is still bifurcated ownership. What 

benefits may FHA see if it establishes a unified property custody? 

Mr. DODARO. We think it will lead to quicker action in disposing 

of the properties. 

Mr. GOSAR. I think I would agree with you. Why hasn’t FHA actually taken and implemented this recommendation? 

Mr. DODARO. You know, Congressman, in preparing for this 

hearing, I asked myself a lot of the same questions. I have asked 

my staff to elevate this issue within the Federal Housing Administration and I do plan to follow up, myself, personally with the secretary of HUD about why they haven’t taken more action on these 

47 

areas. I am, quite frankly, surprised along the lines of the previous 

question. 

Mr. GOSAR. Are there any other things that GAO would tell FHA 

that they would help in the implementation? 

Ms. WILLIAMS BROWN. We have highlighted a number of alternative approaches, the one you mentioned being one, and FHA, for 

the first time, has started to begin to look at some alternatives to 

dealing with REO, and we actually think the one you mention 

would be transformative for the program if it were to actually look 

at the whole unified custody approach. 

Mr. GOSAR. Gotcha. I am going to now refocus. Being a dentist, 

I am going to go back to defense health care contracting. 

The report issued today identifies contracting for the Defense 

health care professionals as an area of fragmentation in the Federal Government. The central issue is a lack of consolidated agency-wide strategy to contract for health care professionals. Can you 

explain the efforts the Army, Navy, and other components within 

DOD and what they have made to remedy the problem of this 

widespread fragmentation? 

Mr. DODARO. Yes. I will ask Paul Francis, who is the head of our 

Acquisition Services, to elaborate, but part of the problem, Congressman, is that there is not any effort to coordinate across the 

services. And even we find some efforts within the individual services to coordinate among themselves, within the Army, Air Force, 

and Navy, and neither of those efforts were very effective; and 

there wasn’t any effort across the services to do so. 

Paul? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, sir. What we found was in contracting for 

medical health care professionals at DOD’s facilities, I think there 

was $1.1 billion in contracting. We found about only 8 percent of 

that where two services got together and consolidated the requirements. Even when a single service was doing the contracting, they 

would award multiple contracts for the same type of people in the 

same facility. 

And I think the issue is with the Federal Government and contracting is if you run your competition and you have a pretty good 

contract, you seem happy. But that is just not good enough. So 

these contracts are competed; they are good instruments and so 

forth, but the Government needs to do more, to do like private industry. So you need to be looking for your best deals. So while the 

Army, for example, might have 10 really good contracts for 10 different things, maybe it should have one contract for 10 things. 

Mr. GOSAR. Is there a way, from your viewpoint, that we could 

get the military to actually get this taken care of and done and actually implement contracting unified across the board? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. Now, there are a couple things. There is a new 

Defense health agency that says it is going to take that up, but we 

are still waiting. And there has been a subcontract group that is 

supposed to deal with it as well. But I think Congress could create 

incentives. One would be do something with the money. If you 

think savings are available, maybe you could lower the budget by 

that amount and create an incentive for them to consolidate those 

contracts. 

48 

Mr. GOSAR. Part of the problem, even though we have power of 

the purse, is actually trying to get a budget passed. I mean, I am 

a dentist impersonating a politician, and to see what goes on in 

this place is just absolutely ludicrous. So maybe a commission, 

maybe a mixture of retired military as well as some business folks. 

Could a commission like that actually have some benefit? 

Mr. FRANCIS. It could, although I would say I don’t think there 

is any question about the problem. People agree it is not that efficient; it has been studied. And I think people know what to do 

about it. It is the point you made, the actual taking of action; that 

is what is not happening. 

Mr. DODARO. Congressman, we have recommended in the past 

that there be a chief management official over at the Department. 

In this case, and like many of the cases, the people we talk with 

in the Department agree with us; they just can’t be organized 

enough to focus on the implementation of the program. So congressional oversight and control of the funds within the Department is 

really the only way to do it. In many of these areas there have been 

commissions in the past and studies, and my feeling is that other 

commissions will have marginal effect; that you really need to focus 

on and hold the people in the Department accountable for focusing 

in on it if you really want some action done. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, that gets back to my aspects of that we have 

a lawless society in Washington, D.C., because we can’t even get 

compliance with a subpoena by the attorney general of the United 

States. So that is also problematic, but that is another subject for 

another day. Actually, Thursday. But I thank you very, very much. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. COLLINS. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman brings up a great point, though. In just listening 

to you, I love what these words are: we are still waiting. You made 

it just a second ago. How many times have we come into this room, 

and that is one of the things we are still waiting? Or I don’t remember, or we are getting to it, or we are still waiting; oh, the report hasn’t come out yet. 

And, yet, when you come inside basically the Beltway, the only 

area in the world right now, especially in the U.S. over the last few 

years, that is actually building, growing, and producing something 

which is not widgets, but they are jobs to do the things that we 

are talking about here in areas in which hurt business. They don’t 

do things efficiently, they change up things. 

That is why I believe the Commission we are proposing—and, 

again, I am not, by any illusion, I was in Georgia. In the appropriations committee, appropriators, this is an area where we should be 

doing some of this; we are not doing it now. Not an indictment on 

anyone, I think it is just the politics of it. So we are actually putting together an up or down vote, a BRAC style vote. You put this 

up, there are going to be some things that you may not like, but 

you find the common agreement stuff. You are not going to get a 

report from a bipartisan commission that is going to have these 

things that most people don’t agree with. 

We are looking at this and it also is six years and takes each appropriations bill two each year. So you are going through the whole 

appropriations bill process in six years. And then at the end it has 

49 

a provision in which GAO will do a report to look at what actually 

happened in this process. 

So as we look at this, I think the other issue is getting control 

of the budget in and of itself. You said areas like this where we 

find this, why should these still be rewarded, and I think those are 

the things we are going to look at, my office is looking at, is to say 

if we see it in the report, then we need to make an amendment in 

the appropriations process; undoubtedly, you don’t need this anymore. 

That is the one thing I think that we can continue on; it is one 

thing this committee needs to be a part of, because the American 

people, if there is one thing true, they are simply tired of saying 

we are still waiting. They can’t wait on their jobs; they can’t wait 

on their businesses; and Washington needs to do the same. 

So, with that, I see no one else. I would like to thank the witness 

for taking time from his busy schedule to appear before us today. 

When you come, you bring light. I hope now that we can take that 

light and actually put these into work. 

With that, the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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