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Congress wacked down the GAO budget in the early 1990s, while doing nothing to reduce its own gigantically grown staff, especially in personal offices. At the time the Senate as discarding thousands of non-top of the line computers which would have been a
vast improvement for GAO where evaluators/auditors had to share ancient desktops. GAO's response was to cut operations, not reduce its own hugely top heavy management. Being at GAO at the time and being there having spent 20 years in the Senate staff, I
had an up front and personal view.
Now all these trends are infinitely worse: one significant difference being that congressional staff is now much lighter on substantive professionals but preposterously overstuffed with speech writers, media mavens, and hordes of political adviser-drones.
This is much more than just another Trump swipe at people who bring him unwanted news.
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Winslow T. Wheeler
From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> on behalf of Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2025 9:26 PM To: salon@listserve.com <salon@listserve.com> Subject: [Salon] House wants to shrivel GAO
The GAO audits govt spending; evaluates federal programs for effectiveness; investigates waste, fraud, and abuse; and advises on improving govt operations, all things I thought were now prioritized.
House Rs just proposed cutting its budget by 49%, eliminating 63% of its staff.
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