Waste of the Day: GAO: Congress Has 610 Recommendations
Topline: The Government Accountability Office’s 2026 annual report made 97 new recommendations for Congress to improve government efficiency and lower the risk of fraud and waste. There are still 513 recommendations from past years that Congress has yet to fully address.
Key facts: The top recommendation is for Medicare to stop paying higher rates based on where a medical procedure is performed. Currently, Medicare pays more for operations in a hospital than the exact same procedure in a doctor’s office. Equalizing the rates would save almost $16 billion per year, the GAO estimates.
The GAO also wants Medicare to change how it reimburses hospitals for drugs. Hospitals can make a profit when prescribing medicine to Medicare patients because the government often reimburses the hospital more than the actual cost of the drug. That incentivizes hospitals to prescribe more drugs than necessary. Changing the system would save “tens of billions,” according to the GAO.
Medicare is projected to be underfunded by $60.4 trillion over the next 75 years.
Much of the report focuses on duplication: instances where the government pays for nearly identical services several times.
The military has “23 cybersecurity service providers who are largely conducting the same activities and functions,” according to the report. Different departments of the Internal Revenue Service are buying identical AI software. Several agencies like the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Agriculture are working to expand internet access in low-income and rural areas, but they are not coordinating their efforts.
The report also asks the White House to assemble a comprehensive list of all federal programs, which has been required since 2011 but still does not exist. Even the Federal Register, which is supposed to list active government agencies, included 75 defunct agencies as of January 2025. Hundreds of “zombie programs” also continue to receive funding even though their legal authorization has expired.
The GAO has been releasing its annual report for 16 years. Congress has fully or partially accepted 77% of its recommendations. The GAO estimates that it has saved taxpayers $774.3 billion, including almost $50 billion last year.
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Summary: The GAO’s annual report is one of the government’s most valuable tools for reducing wasteful spending, and it’s imperative that at least most of its recommendations are adopted.
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