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S. 1120, the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Reduction Act of 1981

Published: Jun 09, 1981. Publicly Released: Jun 09, 1981.
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Highlights

Legislation has been proposed which would reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in Government by an across-the-board 2 percent reservation of funds for fiscal years 1982 and 1983. GAO questions whether this approach will achieve the bill's objective. It expressed concern that the bill would create disincentives to reporting waste, fraud, and abuse, and that it establishes procedures which are duplicative of the existing budget control process and are unclear in some respects. The bill would allow those agencies which determine that there is no such waste, fraud, or abuse to submit a request to Congress for the release of the amount withheld from them; this would be equal to 2 percent of their appropriation. Therefore, the less fraud, waste, and abuse an agency reports, the greater the amount it can request to be restored. The bill would in effect establish a separate process for administering 2 percent of each agency's appropriation. From the agency's point of view, they would have two sources of funds and separate processes for each source. While GAO strongly agrees with and endorses the objective of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, it is concerned about the means to achieve this objective embodied in the bill. It urges that Congress examine the relationship and impact of the bill on existing laws and procedures for Federal budget and spending control and auditing. There are other ways of improving specific aspects of Government administration in order to achieve economies, including better debt collection, procurement practices, and internal control systems. There is also the alternative of reducing appropriations directly and thus, forcing agencies to find economies or request and justify supplemental appropriations. This could be accomplished through existing procedures.

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