It’s a story as previous as January 2025: GOP lawmakers imagine their main job is to help President Donald Trump in doing no matter he desires—even when “whatever he wants” means “turn Congress into a relic with no power.” Their newest transfer is to affix with the White Home in attacking the Authorities Accountability Workplace.
The Trump administration would very very similar to to cease the GAO from investigating any Trump spending actions or figuring out whether or not these actions violate the regulation, regardless of that being the GAO’s precise job. The White Home discovered a pal in Home Republicans, who’ve eagerly proposed chopping the GAO’s price range by half to verify it might’t do its work.
There’s no query that the typical Republican member of Congress will not be precisely a historical past buff, however it isn’t exhausting to study that Congress itself created the GAO greater than a century in the past and expanded its function within the budgeting course of over 50 years in the past. The GAO points authorized selections on the Impoundment Management Act—the one Trump retains ignoring by simply refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress. The GAO can also be actually a part of the legislative department, which is why congressional Republicans simply rolling over and exhibiting their tummies to Trump is so maddening.
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Extra maddening even is that the GAO is definitely chargeable for the issues that the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity was pretending to be chargeable for when it was taking a blowtorch to the entire of presidency. The GAO’s efforts to root out waste and fraud have resulted in $725 billion in monetary advantages since 2011. Their most up-to-date report recognized $100 billion in estimated financial savings that might have been realized by adopting GAO effectivity suggestions. In distinction, the Elon Musk-led DOGE just about simply made up numbers that have been handy, promising trillions in cuts, then billions, then—wait! Please simply don’t point out that DOGE’s reign of terror someway resulted in a rise in authorities spending over a comparable interval in 2024.
Bear in mind the laughably faux DOGE dashboard, which was presupposed to be essentially the most clear ever however as an alternative is only a hodgepodge checklist of companies that appear like you may click on via however lol you can’t. The promised $2 trillion in DOGE financial savings has melted all the way down to $190 billion, even when one takes that at face worth—which you undoubtedly mustn’t.
However do you know that GAO used to have an precise dashboard with precise information, and that the Trump administration took down as a result of it stated it revealed delicate info? Certain, yeah. On Monday, in response to a lawsuit by two watchdog teams, a federal decide ordered the positioning restored as a result of there of a 2022 congressional mandate that spending selections be printed on-line. Let’s face it, although: Decrease courtroom orders don’t imply something, as a result of finally the administration will simply go to the Supreme Court docket and beg them to wipe out the choice—probably efficiently. However for now, we are able to bask within the administration’s loss.
If congressional Republicans weren’t so wanting to let Trump radically upend the separation of powers that’s core to American democracy, they’d be outraged at his administration’s makes an attempt to neuter a legislative department watchdog. However that watchdog is so pesky, discovering that the administration illegally withheld funds on not only one, however two events. For what it’s price, the administration’s stance is what it all the time is: No different department of presidency can inform it what to do, something that’s opposed to the administration is a partisan try and undermine Trump’s agenda, and so they’re simply going to disregard it.
In the end, stomping on the GAO is smart for the administration, as it’s wanting to remove any obstacles to its makes an attempt to consolidate all energy within the govt department and to permit the administration to maintain its spending opaque and unchallenged. For Republicans in Congress, although, it is not sensible to face apart whereas Trump takes their energy away. In order that they’re not standing apart. They’re going to assist as an alternative.
Certain, meaning ceding congressional energy to Trump, however what’s a bit destruction of the separation of powers between pals?
