Audit Underscores Need for USASpending.gov Revamp

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today released the following statement on the recently released Government Accountability Office’s report that agencies failed to provide sufficient information to USASpending.gov, which tracks government spending. According to the report, at least 93 percent of federal awards on the website contained information that was inconsistent with agencies’ records.

“If we are ever to successfully confront the challenges that lie before us as a nation, Congress and the American people need accurate information about where and how taxpayer money is spent,” said Chairman Issa. “The results of GAO’s audit not only undermine the accuracy of spending information reported on a website—they illuminate a truth that the American people intuitively understand—that nobody in the leadership of the vast federal bureaucracy is truly able to track where taxpayer dollars are going. Congress has already acted by passing the DATA Act—among its reforms are a major change in leadership and a requirement to set strong standards for the reporting of spending information. The American taxpayers are justifiably fed up with a government that cannot accurately tell them how their money is being spent. They want and deserve a government that is accountable and that spends their tax dollars responsibly.”

The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), signed into law by the President on May 9th, 2014, will make federal spending data publically available and easily accessible, and will create more useful government-wide financial data standards. It will also improve the management and comprehensiveness of USASpending.gov by placing it under the control of the Treasury Department. The DATA Act opens and standardizes the federal government’s spending data. The DATA Act is cosponsored by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., and Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio.