From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: 2019 Duplication and Cost Savings Report Description: It's time to take a look at what's new with GAO's yearly report on duplication, overlap, and fragmentation in federal programs. Related GAO Work: GAO-19-285SP: 2019 Annual Report: Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Billions in Financial Benefits Released: May 2019 [ Background Music ] [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] The federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. And this is due primarily to increases in healthcare spending and payments on the national debt. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Jacques Arsenault. It remains the case that the federal government spends more money than it brings in. GAO has a mandate to explore areas in the federal government where billions of dollars can be saved by minimizing fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative activities, and through cost-saving and revenue-enhancing measures. I'm here with Jessica Lucas-Judy, a director in our Strategic Issues team, to talk about her team's 2019 review of these issues. Thanks for joining me, Jessica. [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Thanks for having me, Jacques. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] How many new areas did you report on this year? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] This year we've identified 98 actions across 28 new areas. And these span the entire federal government, and they include healthcare, defense, food safety, science, and other areas. And we also looked at some of the areas from our previous reports and found some new actions that could be taken in things like construction of VA medical facilities, and how IRS addresses identity theft refund fraud. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Are there any other notable areas or actions in this year's report? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] We found that the Department of Energy could save billions of dollars by using a more strategic, risk-based approach to how it cleans up radioactive and hazardous waste. We also looked at the Department of Defense and how it uses printing services. They use about $600 million per year in printing services. And we found that they could save millions of dollars by further consolidating their facilities, and also by reducing the number of contracts that they have for their print devices. Another example is with the Army Corps of Engineers. They manage inland waterways construction projects, including locks and dams for transporting freight by water. And those projects are funded annually, year-by-year. And that can cause schedule delays and cost overruns. So, one of the projects that we looked at costs $229 million more than was originally estimated. And another one is about 20 years behind schedule. So, GAO recommended that the Corps of Engineers find more efficient ways of funding projects, or that they ask Congress for authority to do so. And that could potentially save millions of dollars. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now, this is the ninth of these annual reports that GAO has done. Can you talk about the sort of affect that these reports have had over the years? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Congress and Executive Branch agencies have addressed, or partially addressed, about three-quarters of the more than 800 actions that we identified in our last eight reports. And this has resulted in about $262 billion in financial benefits. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] That's a lot of financial benefits. Are there particular areas or actions that drove a lot of that cost-saving? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Some of the big ticket items include changes in farm program payments that saved about $44.5 billion, changes in how we develop and acquire weapon systems that saved about $43 billion, and changes to Medicaid demonstration projects; that saved about $37 billion. But the benefits aren't just through dollars. There are other benefits that come from implementing our actions as well. For example, the Department of Defense and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are now working together better on improving coverage for their weather satellites that are used for things like climate research and weather forecasting. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] As fiscal responsibility becomes a bigger issue; we're finding that every penny does actually count in the federal government. And savings of more than $250 billion is well, a lot of pennies. But Jessica, not everything, whether it's money savings or other improvements to government, not everything that GAO's found over the years has been applied. How many of these actions has the federal government not addressed? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] There's still 396 actions that are open. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And how much money could be saved if they did address all of these open recommendations or actions? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] We estimate that there are tens of billions of dollars that could still be saved by addressing our 396 actions. For example, you could save more than $9 billion by consolidating the Department of Defense headquarters organizations and another $2 billion if Congress prevented payments for full disability insurance and unemployment insurance that covered the same time period. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Finally, what would you say is the bottom line of this report? [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] The federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. And this is due primarily to increases in healthcare spending and payments on the national debt. Now, fixing that is going to take a long time and be pretty complicated. But in the meantime, in the short-term, GAO has identified hundreds of actions that Congress, or executive branch agencies could take to make more effective and efficient use of resources and make better use of taxpayer dollars. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Jessica Lucas-Judy is a director in our Strategic Issues team and led the group responsible for writing this year's Duplication and Cost Savings Report. Thanks again for your time, Jessica. [ Jessica Lucas-Judy: ] Thank you. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Jacques Arsenault: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.