The Government Accountability Agency (GAO). Good guys or bureaucrats?

September 23, 2007 9:47 AM

The Government Accountability Agency (GAO). Good guys or bureaucrats?

I have heard that the GAO is an island of productivity in the sea of government inefficiency. Does anyone have any experience with this organization, or know what they are like to work for? I've already explored their website.

posted by doppleradar to law & government (10 comments total)

Of course I meant Government Accountability Office (GAO) not Agency.
posted by doppleradar at 9:57 AM on September 23, 2007

Note: I do not work at the GAO, but I have a friend who does and some others that work closely with the GAO as a whole.

My friend says its a decent place to work, but insanely stressful due to hectic deadlines. (He was also doing something with the Iraq report, so that might be just an added amout of ARG.)
Whenever it's mentioned in any of my classes, the other government employees mention how godawful it is because it keeps them from doing things in a timely manner.
posted by sperose at 10:00 AM on September 23, 2007

Historically they are the good guys.
In the last several years I have heard (in press reports that I can't find now; not from employees) that the political pressures are greater on them.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:07 AM on September 23, 2007

Completely anecdotal, but the boringest little bureaucrat it was ever my misfortune to room with worked for the GAO right out grad school. Being such, she was completely immune to politics, relativism, imagination, creativity and nuance. Therefore, I have always trusted the GAO to tell it like it is.
posted by nax at 10:52 AM on September 23, 2007

I've worked with the GAO on various things, both as part of my current job and as part of one of my former jobs, and I would definitely consider them the good guys.

They are bureaucrats because they have to be, given the size of the organization. But in my experience they are in general very much focused on getting the best value for money spent, taking people to task for the work they did (particularly in comparison to what they said they would do), and looking out for the best interests of citizens.

Like LobsterMitten, I'd also heard that the GAO has been feeling a lot more political pressure lately - notably on the report on the FDA process in evaluating "Plan B" contraceptives and on the recent Iraq report. However, David Walker - the GAO head - has denied that the GAO is under political pressure to make changes to the Iraq report, though his claims sound pretty weak IMO.
posted by gemmy at 11:24 AM on September 23, 2007

Can't we be good guys AND bureaucrats?

I've had mixed experiences with the GAO (as a consumer of their products). Generally their published reports are good, but I've also seen some pretty sloppy analysis from them (on a piece of legislation that I know well).

I think they approach their work in as unbiased and objective a way as possible. They are used as a political tool, though, by, say, senators who ask them to report on all the possible problems with x issue. The questions they are asked to answer are often carefully designed by the asker to result in a very politically motivated outcome. Not the GAO's fault in the least, but also not resulting in a truly neutral result.
posted by gingerbeer at 1:51 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Of the agencies in goverment, the GAO is one of the most honest and straightforward. These are the people who have the balls to tell Congress and the American people that the present debt of the United States -- if the US is held to the same accounting standards to which we hold our corporations -- is over fifty trillion dollars, and growing like crazy.

From what I've seen, you can trust what the GAO says over any other branch in government.
posted by Malor at 3:20 PM on September 23, 2007

Just as a historical point, I remember when one of the guys at the GAO was fired for releasing an accurate estimate for the cost of the prescription drug bill.

There were many members of Congress who pledged not to support the bill if it cost more than $400 billion over 10 years. The administration claimed that the bill would cost $395 billion, while, at nearly the same time, the GAO released a report estimating the cost at $551 billion.

Well, two months after the bill passed, the white house revised their estimate to $535 billion, and less than two years later, revised it upward again to over $700 billion.
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 6:07 PM on September 23, 2007

Used to be called the General Accounting Office before one of those stupid bureaucratic renaming schemes (I think under the Gingrich regime) transformed it into the Govt. Accountability Office. It's the (theoretically) independent research/evaluation arm of Congress.

As a reporter, I used to find GAO reports really useful, relatively independent evaluations of costs/benefits of congressional bills. I don't recall the mechanics of WHY precisely their reports were relatively trustworthy and objective, but they were.
posted by jackbrown at 6:51 AM on September 24, 2007

As a former UK civil servant I had some dealings with the GAO on visits to DC, and always found them intelligent and interesting people to talk to.
posted by athenian at 12:27 PM on September 28, 2007