Talk:Government Accountability Office

Untitled
I removed the brief section on GAO's report on "Operation Whitecoat." GAO has produced thousands of reports over the years covering all aspects of government, and it does not make sense for an article on GAO to have a section on that one particular report, which was not even among their most significant. Jbromberg 13:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

In order to WHAT???
the GAO is the general accountong office: there is no such thing as the government accountability office, the function alludrd to by TV commercials does not exist in government! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.108.216 (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The article states:

"The GAO was established as the General Accounting Office by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (Pub.L. 67-13, 42 Stat. 20, June 10, 1921). . . . . . . The name was changed in 2004 to better reflect the mission of the office.[1]"

I'm sorry, there is no place for specifying intention in an encyclopedia article. That is because only those intending can know what their intentions are.

It doesn't matter if you provide a ton of super-reliable citations. No one can know why someone performed a given action. And even the very words of the actor(s) can not be relied upon. Especially when it comes to politics.

I strongly recommend that the wording be changed to something akin to "The reason given for the name change by the GAO [or by whoever] was thus and such." Daqu 01:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced statement in lead
"The long tenure of the Comptroller General and the manner of appointment and removal gives GAO a continuity of leadership and independence that is rare within government." I've moved the above original sentence from the article page. It seems to synthesize information from the GAO website and the biography of the current Comptroller General David M. Walker found on the National Academy of Public Administration website. I couldn't find a possible source of "manner of appointment and removal" with a cursory Google search.

--Temporal User (Talk) 00:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The 2012 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
"LITERATURE PRIZE: The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports. REFERENCE: "Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of Reports and Studies," US Government General Accountability Office report GAO-12-480R, May 10, 2012." SOURCE

Sould this be mentioned?--85.250.82.41 (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Billion?
Hi,

my English is not the best and you americans with your miles, gallons and billions (a billion in Europe or the "metric system" is a trillion and after every "illion" an "illiarden" follows, so billion is "Milliarde" (Million, Milliarde, Billion, Billiarde, Trillion... so the US debt of almost 17 trillion in our trillions would be: 17.000.000.000.000.000.000 ... even for the US debt clock a damn high number^^), here is a statement from this article:

In FY 2010, the US federal government had a net operating cost of $2,080 billion, although since this includes accounting provisions (estimates of future liabilities), the cash deficit is $1,294 billion.[11]

2,080 billion for the US federal goverment?! Not 2,080 trillion? The FY 2010 spending was: Total revenue

$2.381 trillion (requested) $2.163 trillion (actual)

Total expenditures

$3.552 trillion (requested) $3.456 trillion (actual)[1]

Deficit

$1.171 trillion (requested) $1.293 trillion (enacted)

Ah now I see...we use the, as comma. So 2,080 billion is 2.080 trillion... but this is still far away from expenditures, its close to the total revenue of 2,163 billion (2,381 billion expected before). So someone can maybe explain this part?! We will see what the sequestration will have on impact outside the military branch. Kilon22 (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC) However the deficit stated with 1,294 billion is almost correct (1,293 billion). Operating Cost + Deficit = Total expenditures or how is it meant?! Kilon22 (talk) 23:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In Brazil
In Brazil, the government office that is similar to GAO is Tribunal de Contas da Uniao (Court of Accounts of the Union, often referred to as TCU), part of the legislative branch, and not Brazilian Inspectorate-General (Controladoria Geral da Uniao, often referred to as CGU), part of the executive branch. Amorim79 (talk) 19:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding site to WikiProject Engineering
The GAO has issued a number of reports over the past 30 years on project management, cost overruns, schedule delays and risk assessment in the United States government. I plan to cull out the significant ones and work them into articles highlighting the agencies role.
 * Revised report section to reflect current structure of annual series reports.. deleted reference to performance series since I can't find it on their site... I have added link to annual report series on key issues for the reader to all reports in that group as well as fixed link to high risk series. Added cross reference to statement for the record materials.
 * Planning to add info box at bottom of article to organize and access reports along the lines of the ISO standards ...

Many thanks ... Risk Engineer (talk) 12:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Article Evaluation
This article serves to describe the history and purpose of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and its functions that help to ensure the accountability of the federal government to the American people. This article provided an effective description how the GAO serves as "The Congressional Watchdog" in terms of conducting financial and performance audits and making recommendations to Congress and other government entities in order to increase efficiency. This article however did contain a few grammatical errors in addition to the section that talked about the GAO and Technology Assessment and the necessary phases the GAO follows when they receive a request to conduct TA being a little confusing and unclear.

L bestraever01 (talk) 17:49, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

US GAO
This article is referring to the *United States* Government Accountability Office. It is not referring to Government Accountability Offices in general. I recommend that the article title be updated to include this qualification. Full Decent (talk) 17:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Disagree. We generally do not qualify names where no qualification is needed. There is only one and only GAO. --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Why replace a good picture with a bad one?
User:AgnosticPreachersKid did this very strange edit on 19 January 2017 which substituted a bad picture for a good one. The only two good things about the newer photo are that it was taken at higher resolution and it shows a more recent view of the GAO building (it hasn't changed much). However, I took the older photo at near high noon in August, when every detail of the front façade was visible and there were still leaves on the trees. The newer photo was shot in early evening in January when there were few leaves on the trees. As any novice photographer learns quickly, dusk is an awful time to take photos once the sun drops below the horizon, because colors start to gray out very quickly, which is what actually happened in User:AgnosticPreachersKid's photo. Any objections before I revert back to a better-quality photo? --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:50, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I could care less, but substituting a photo that only shows a portion of the building with one that shows the entire building is hardly "very strange". The lighting on my photo isn't ideal, but I wouldn't call it "bad". Try being a little nicer with your section headings and wording. APK whisper in my ear  12:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

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The Audit
For the GAO to give the Federal Government financial statements a qualified report means that certain conditions need to be reformed. What are they? They should specify that. Music man214 (talk) 06:07, 12 March 2018 (UTC)


 * @Music man214: I don't see anything in the article about a qualified opinion. I see that they disclaimed an opinion on the 2010 financial statements. (No surprise there; last I checked, the Department of Defense was considered unauditable.) —C.Fred (talk) 19:52, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

GAO and Russian Chamber of Accounts
Why is there an extensive section in this article comparing GAO to what may or may not be the equivalent in Russia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.3.153.65 (talk) 14:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

covid 19
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/watchdog-trump-coronavirus-audits-192272?cid=apn&fbclid=IwAR0Bhhn_Kf9xK6O4kPgtMHksqXNuxBsZ5TOaCY1qyJZ7ASLUE8rzLxUBzcQ