Selected Federal Accounts: Past Outlays and GAO Recommendations

GAO was requested to examine the 10 largest spending programs in each of the 12 cabinet-level departments, track expenditure growth in these programs for several years, and estimate the dollar value of waste and inefficient expenditures in each of these 120 programs. GAO was also requested to suggest legislative remedies and other ways to reduce and eliminate waste. Recent growth in the 10 largest Federal appropriation accounts in each of the cabinet-level departments were analyzed rather than program accounts, because program data was not readily available. The accounts were selected on the basis of actual fiscal year 1978 net outlays.