Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has called for the closing of the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Axios reports Vought made his thoughts known during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC. This comes after the GAO published reports this year stating the Trump administration ran afoul of several federal laws, with at least one report specifically citing Vought.
“We’re not big fans of GAO,” Vought said. “They are a quasi-legislative independent entity and something that shouldn’t exist.”
According to the GAO’s website, the agency said it “provides Congress, the heads of executive agencies, and the public with timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Our work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is statutorily required by public laws or committee reports, per our Congressional Protocols.”
Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general of the GAO, responded to Vought’s comments in a statement that said, “Clearly Russell Vought does not value transparency and accountability. GAO’s mission is to support Congress in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities. During my tenure as Comptroller General alone, GAO has saved taxpayers over $1.2 trillion and resulted in tens of thousands of improvements to how federal programs work.”
Dodaro has been serving a 15-year term since December 2010, when the Obama administration was in the White House. President Trump has not announced who will replace Dodaro when his term expires at the end of the year.
This is a poorly written article. It sets up a valid question & only gives minor detail to one side. A government agency should have verifiable purpose & results. Opposition to it should have the same information. This Author set up an issue & basically disagreed without context.
Voight’s comments are natural for an evil, anti-government person, who is paid by that government. Unmitigated hypocrisy!!!!!!
unfortunetly gov. organizations such as CFPB in DC, or Office of Financial Regulation
Maryland Department of Labor whom over see Banks Unlawful and consumer’s complaint must get closed.
My bank Eagle’s Bank headquartered in Maryland voilated many rules. FDIC and many others did not want to investigate and told me they had refered the matter where $20,000 was at the issue, was refered to the above two gov. organizations. LET me tell you how they handle complaints: NO Investigation !!! they allow both parties to exchange their commplaint and answer. I am shocked !! employees of both places MUST get fired so citizens of this country can save money. I am 65 years old with limited income and I have to watch whole of people getting paid $80-120 K a year to allow exchange of statements only?
what a shame.
It’s called the government accountability office so you explain to me how there’s any accountability – as a loan officer annd real estate agent for 24 years, how on earth did they miss out on Cook not reporting where principal residence resides. It’s the biggest case of mortgage fraud that’s ever existed.
For a loan officer and real estate agent (hopefully not as a Realtor), you surely don’t understand much about the role of the GAO. And you should actually be looking inwards as to the reasons why Ms Sharp allegedly committed a fraud with two loans on two loans reviewed by loan officers, such as yourself. Also, it strikes me as a conflict for you to be both a real estate agent and loan officer. Perhaps the OCC, FDIC and FBI would be well-advised to look at how many times you personally overrode internal controls to approve loans without the proper levels of approval, or knew something about a borrower that never made it to the loan committee? Yup