Comptroller General lists outdated, unneeded programs

Comptroller General David Walker on Tuesday cited scores of ways the federal government could operate programs more affordably and efficiently-or could simply privatize or eliminate them altogether.

In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, Walker suggested privatizing the Energy Department's power marketing administrations, consolidating various overlapping land management activities and reconsidering funding levels for several different tactical aircraft systems. As comptroller general, Walker is head of the General Accounting Office.

"Projected surpluses do not absolve the government of its responsibility to make good use of taxpayer dollars," Walker said. "It shouldn't be insulting or threatening to any federal program or activity to question its relevance or 'fit' in today's world."

Opportunities for improving government operations abound, Walker said. His suggestions included:

• The Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service should restructure its loan program. Since 1994, the service has written off or is in the process of writing off more than $5 billion that it could not collect from borrowers.
• Congress could "reconsider the need for and benefits derived from" United States international broadcasting efforts, including the Voice of America. Radio and television broadcasting cost nearly $400 million in 1999.
• The Government Printing Office, which receives more than $100 million a year in appropriations, could be forced to compete with private-sector printers for government agencies' business.
• The Defense Department's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences could be closed.
• The Agriculture Department could raise its user fees for food inspections. Of the $1.6 billion USDA spends annually on inspections, only $400 million is recovered through user fees.
• Congress could consider reorganizing federal land management agencies-the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Services-which "have grown increasingly similar over time."
• As the population of veterans declines, the Veterans Affairs Department needs to restructure its health care operations, particularly in areas in which "multiple VA facilities compete with each other to serve veterans."

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., echoed Walker's call for more congressional oversight of existing federal programs.

"I hope this hearing will be the beginning of a process to find where taxpayer dollars should not go so we can either put them where they should go or return them to the sender," Domenici said.

Walker recommended that Congress take a governmentwide approach to improving federal operations, rather than looking at programs agency-by-agency.

"Reconsidering federal programs and activities individually is less likely to lead to change than basing reform initiatives on broad policy rationales or themes," Walker said.