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.