You may have seen the news about the latest GAO report on auditing the U.S. government: U.S. Government’s Fiscal Years 2012 and 2011 Consolidated Financial Statements, GAO-13-271R, Jan 17, 2013, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-271R.
The reasons why the GAO can’t audit the U.S. government:
(1) serious financial management problems at DOD that have prevented its financial statements from being auditable,
(2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and
(3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.
Number 2 reminds me of: The 560+ $Billion Shell Game, where I provided data files based on the OMB Sequestration report, detailing that over 560 $billion in agency transfers could not be tracked.
That problem has now been confirmed by the GAO.
I am sure my analysis was not original and has been known to insiders at the GAO and others for years.
But did you know that I mailed that analysis to both of my U.S. Senators and got no response?
I did get a “bug letter” from my representative, Austin Scott:
Washington continues to spend at unsustainable levels. That is why I voted against H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act when it passed Congress on January 1, 2013. This plan does not address the real driver of our debt – spending. President Obama’s unwillingness to address this continues to cripple our efforts to find a long-term solution. We cannot tax our way out of this fiscal situation.
The President himself has said on multiple occasions that spending cuts must be part of the solution. In fact, on April 13, 2011 he remarked, “So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget.” However, his words have seldom matched his actions.
We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make the tough choices and devise a long-term solution that gets our economy back on track and reduces our deficits. I remain hopeful that the President will join us in this effort. Thank you for contacting me. It’s an honor to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia.
Non-responsive would be a polite word for it.
My original point has been vindicated by the GAO but that brings no joy.
My request to the officials I have contacted was simple:
All released government financial data must be available in standard spreadsheet formats (Excel, CSV, ODF).
There are a whole host of other issues that will arise from such data but the first step is to get it in a crunchable format.