Skip to main content

Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request: U.S. Government Accountability Office

GAO-05-476T Published: Apr 19, 2005. Publicly Released: Apr 19, 2005.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

This testimony is in support of the fiscal year 2006 budget request for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). This request is necessary to help us continue to support the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people. We are grateful to the Congress for providing us with the support and resources that have helped us in our quest to be a world-class professional services organization. We believe that investing in GAO produces a sound return and results in substantial benefits to the Congress and the American people. In the years ahead, our support to the Congress will likely prove even more critical because of the pressures created by our nation's current and projected budget deficit and long-term fiscal imbalance. These fiscal pressures will require the Congress to make tough choices regarding what the government should do, how it will do its work, who will help carry out its work in the future, and how government will be financed in the future. We summarized the larger challenges facing the federal government in our recently issued 21st Century Challenges report. In this report, we emphasize the critical need to bring the federal government's programs and policies into line with 21st century realities. Continuing on our current unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security. We, therefore, must fundamentally reexamine major spending and tax policies and priorities in an effort to recapture our fiscal flexibility and ensure that our programs and priorities respond to emerging security, social, economic, and environmental changes and challenges in the years ahead. This testimony focuses on GAO's (1) performance and results with the funding Congress provided in fiscal year 2004, (2) streamlining and management improvement efforts under way, and (3) budget request for fiscal year 2006 to support the Congress and serve the American people.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Agency missionsBudget activitiesBudget administrationBudget authorityCost controlFederal agency reorganizationFuture budget projectionsHuman capitalLabor forcePerformance measuresStaff utilizationStrategic planningBudget requests