Comer: GAO’s Duplication Report Offers Blueprint to Safeguard Taxpayer Dollars and Strengthen Government Efficiency

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today issued the following statement on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) annual Duplication and Fragmentation report:

“GAO’s excellent work has been a cornerstone of congressional oversight and decision-making for over 30 years. While we’ve made significant strides in saving taxpayers more than $700 billion, today’s GAO report shows Congress still has work to do to rein in the runaway bureaucracy. GAO has identified both new and existing federal programs that are struggling to fulfill their missions, plagued by inefficiencies, and failing to make effective use of taxpayer funds. This report can further serve as a blueprint for congressional action needed to protect taxpayers and make our federal government programs operate more efficiently and effectively. GAO’s recommendations will continue to be utilized by the House Oversight Committee and Trump Administration to safeguard taxpayer dollars, combat waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, and ensure federal programs are operating as designed for the American people,” said Chairman Comer. 

GAO annually reports on federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives-either within departments or government-wide that have potentially duplicative goals or activities. As part of this work, GAO also identifies additional opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness that result in cost savings or enhanced revenue collection. As of March 2025, Congress and agencies have utilized GAO’s recommendations to save American taxpayers $725 billion. According to GAO estimates, fully implementing the outstanding recommendations could generate financial benefits exceeding $100 billion.

Below are some key recommendations from the GAO report:

• The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and 24 federal agencies should implement statutory requirements for annual IT portfolio reviews and high-risk IT investment reviews, which could result in one hundred million dollars or more in cost savings by reducing duplicative IT investments and halting or terminating investments, when appropriate.
• The Department of Defense should take steps to incorporate data analytics into its fraud risk management strategy and improve the usability of fraud investigative information to support fraud risk management and potentially save one hundred million dollars or more.
• OMB and General Services Administration should join Congress in taking steps to help ensure the Federal Audit Clearinghouse contains quality single audit information, which could reduce risk and resolve deficiencies in federal award spending by hundreds of millions per year.
• The Department of Interior could prevent continued productivity losses and cost overruns from a failed data system development and improve its compliance activities to verify federal oil and gas royalties, potentially increasing collections by tens of millions of dollars per year.

Read the full GAO report here.