page_title: John R. McCarl
section_title: Comptroller General
hierarchical_section_title: John R. McCarl / Government career / Comptroller General
caption_attribution_description: English: John Raymond McCarl, attorney and secretary of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, prior to his appointment as the first Comptroller General of the United States in 1921.
context_page_description: John Raymond McCarl was an American lawyer and executive secretary of the national Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. He was the first Comptroller General of the United States, serving from 1921 to 1936. During his time in office, he was one of the most powerful and controversial officials in the U.S. federal government.
context_section_description: Since the final year of the Taft administration (1912), pressure had been building within the Republican Party for legislation which would impose modern financial accounting and budgeting procedures on the federal government. Worsening national debt due to expenditures required by World War I and a greatly enlarged federal government led to passage of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. This legislation, which President Harding signed into law on June 10, 1921, created the Government Accounting Office (GAO), an independent agency answerable solely to Congress. The head of the GAO was the Comptroller General of the United States, a non-partisan position which could only be filled by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Comptroller General served for a single, non-renewable, 15-year term.
  It is unclear how McCarl won appointment as the first Comptroller General of the United States. Some sources say that McCarl advised Harding on who should fill the position, and that Harding chose McCarl. But other sources say that Senator Norris or Senator Fess pushed McCarl for the position. Although McCarl had no financial training or experience whatsoever, Harding nominated McCarl on June 28, 1921, and the Senate confirmed him the next day.
  Historians Katie Louchheim and Jonathan Dembo note that McCarl had "virtually unlimited power" during his time in office. He was a decisive leader of the organization, asserted a broad range of powers for himself, and fought strongly to make GAO an impartial and independent agency. McCarl made a wide range of decisions on issues as diverse as individual expense accounts, salary increases, statutory authority to incur expenses, and the right of federal employees to receive reimbursement for their work clothes. He refused to authorize the expenditure of $100 million of Public Works Administration funds for slum clearance and declined to permit the Department of Agriculture to use drought relief funds for the purchase of surplus lambs as a means of price support. He argued that the law simply did not authorize such actions. He once voided contracts for the construction of the $12.5 million Arlington Memorial Bridge because they called for the hiring of a general contractor and not specific individuals, as he believed the law required. (Congress passed legislation changing the law.) His decisions were often highly controversial and he was widely unpopular within the government. He was very critical of the New Deal pushed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, claiming that New Deal agencies were set up hastily, spent far too much money, and had amorphous powers. He also criticized Congress for delegating too much authority to the executive branch. Political scientist Harvey Mansfield, writing in 1939, considered him a zealot and crusader when it came to accounting.
caption: J.R. McCarl in 1921, shortly before his appointment as Comptroller General.
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