Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), Chair of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2023 budget request for the Government Accountability Office:
I would like to welcome the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office, Mr. Gene Dodaro to present the GAO’s fiscal year 2023 budget request.
Mr. Dodaro, we welcome you back to our Subcommittee. This subcommittee has great admiration for GAO’s work in ferreting out misconduct and finding ways to save billions of dollars with public, fact-based, non-partisan recommendations to improve Federal agency operations and save taxpayers billions of dollars.
The GAO has been a tremendous resource to Congress especially this past year in researching and providing recommendations after the attacks of January 6th. The GAO has worked hard to respond to inquiries, conduct oversight, and provide valuable recommendations to the U.S. Capitol Police, Architect of the Capitol and others in response to the attacks. GAO published numerous flash reports providing invaluable insight toward reform and security upgrades.
We want to thank you and your team for GAO’s recommendations and technical assistance to the Committee on ways that the Congress can strengthen and reassert its power of the purse over appropriations. In, GAO's Proposals to Reinforce Congress's Constitutional Power of the Purse, GAO recommended requiring the Office of Management and Budget to publicly post all apportionments of executive branch appropriations as a way to improve congressional oversight and facilitate GAO providing more timely advice and legal decisions to Congress.
We strongly believe in these goals, and we are pleased to report that the FY 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act enacted a new requirement for OMB to make apportionments of appropriations publicly available, consistent with GAO’s recommendation. We look forward to OMB’s timely implementation of this provision.
This year GAO is requesting an increase of $91.1 million in appropriated funds over what was provided in fiscal year 2022, as well as 3,500 Full Time Equivalents, or FTE’s, in Fiscal Year 2023. Included in this increase is $25 million in no-year funds to meet the congressional directives and report requests of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
We look forward to hearing your testimony today in justification for these significant increases. At this point I would like to yield to my colleague and friend, the Ranking Member, Jaime Herrera Beutler for any opening comments she would like to make.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
