Proposed cuts to Congress’s investigative arm spark protest

Plans to cut deeply into Congress’s investigative arm have sparked a protest from a bipartisan group of senators who say it would hurt the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) ability to track government waste and abuse.

They have sent a letter of complaint to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on The Legislative Branch. Chairman Nelson and the subpanel’s senior Republican, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), have crafted legislation to cut Congress’s budget by 5.2 percent, or $200 million. Nearly $42 million in savings would come from the GAO budget. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John McCain (R-AZ), longtime watchdogs of wasteful government spending, said the cut falls disproportionately on an agency critical to congressional oversight of federal spending.