Concord, N.H. – Today, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander and Congressman Chris Pappas sent a letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole urging them to reverse course on a proposed cut of nearly $400 million to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) – nearly 50 percent of the agency’s annual budget. The letter was led by Congressman Greg Landsman (OH-01).
GAO is Congress’s independent, nonpartisan watchdog that investigates waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government to save taxpayer money. GAO provides Congress and the public with fact-based information, holds agencies accountable, and keeps the government working for the people. Since 2002, the GAO has resulted in $1.45 trillion in savings for the federal government, including $67.5 billion just last year. Cutting the GAO’s budget in half would drastically weaken its ability to deliver future savings.
The members wrote, “There is strong support – from both lawmakers and the public – for making government more efficient, effective, and accountable – and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Cutting GAO’s budget in half would significantly weaken its ability to deliver future savings throughout the government. The proposed funding reduction would result in a loss of more than 2,200 expert staff, hamstring critical oversight work, eliminate technical assistance to Congress, and delay or cancel ongoing investigations. Congress should be investing more in GAO’s work – not less.”
The members continued, “We cannot fight waste, fraud, and abuse by gutting the one agency most responsible for uncovering it. We all want to make government work better – and that requires ensuring the GAO has the resources it needs to continue its work for the American people.”
The full text of the letter can be found here.
Congresswoman Goodlander has been a fierce advocate for protecting the institutions Granite Staters rely on from the Trump Administration’s attacks. She has filed multiple legal briefs to hold the administration accountable, including against dismantling the Department of Education, in defense of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), challenging President Trump’s sweeping and chaotic tariffs unlawfully imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and challenging the Trump Administration’s efforts to close the Department of Education.
Pappas has advocated consistently for the federal government to be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. The first bill he introduced this Congress was his bipartisan Fighting Budget Waste Act, which would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to consider GAO’s annual report on federal programs with fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative goals from the prior year to address problems with those programs and reduce costs. He first introduced this legislation in 2023 and advocated for President Biden’s OMB to take these reports into account while drafting their budgets for FY2024 and FY2025.
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