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by possibleworlds 483 days ago
> There are 5 different existing agencies within the government that all exist for essentially the same purpose -- to track and audit government spending. None of them have been successful in any capacity over the last 20 years.

Provide proof of this claim please.
1 comments
cuuupid 483 days ago
GAO, OMB, CBO, GSA, OIGs (civil agency-specific, DoD OIG, Treasury OIG)

People are acting like I'm making outlandish claims, you can literally just google this! If you are going to go down a rabbit hole I recommend USASpending, which consumes ATOM from FPDS and so is very close to source-of-truth.

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possibleworlds 483 days ago
I’m confused. USASpending looks to be source-of-truth as you say, so how has the US federal government failed in tracking spending when said source-of-truth is supplied by them?

Skimming OiG audit reports, they appear comprehensive and detailed. How has the government failed in auditing if these audits exist?

Where is the 20 years of failure to audit and track spending you mentioned? I’m not sure what you expect me to google.

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woodruffw 483 days ago
It isn't particularly correct to say that these agencies have the same purpose. They do similar things, but each has its own remit.

You could maybe instead say that they should be under the same roof, rather than being independent entities. But I don't think this is itself evidence that any of them have been ineffective. Having read some of their reports, OMB and CBO are not ineffective on face value.

(I also don't think any of this is really about curbing government spending.)

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