Celeste Maloy Questions Congressional Budget Official About Nonpartisan Hiring Practices

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT) questioned officials about ensuring nonpartisanship at CBO.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Strong. I now recognize Ms. Malloy for her five minutes.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,

00:08the witnesses, for being here. When you sit this far

00:12down on the table, a lot of the things that you plan on asking have already been asked by the time they get to you.

00:16But, Mr. Dodaro,

00:20you talk about the cost

00:24savings that you found through your work.

00:28In your testimony, you indicated that in fiscal year 24,

00:32GAO's work yielded $67.5 billion in savings,

00:36and then you testified that you save $123 for every dollar invested

00:40in GAO. Where do those cost saving estimates come from?

00:44Typically, we use third party estimates. They may come from

00:48CBO. They may come from the Congress if the Congress reduces

00:52the agency's budget request. So, typically, we try to use

00:56third party estimates. And only if those aren't available,

01:00we'll make our own estimate. But then we'll

01:02run it by the agency, for example.

01:04At DOD, if we say,

01:06the DOD took action on our recommendation.

01:08We believe it saved this much. Do you agree?

01:10And typically, they agree.

01:12I believe these estimates

01:14are intended to be very conservative

01:16and reliable

01:18and accurate.

01:20So, you also talked about

01:24finding fraud and saving,

01:26preventing fraud and finding savings.

01:28How often do you find

01:30an area that's ripe like that and Congress

01:32fails to take it up and act on it?

01:34Well, I have a number of open

01:36matters for Congressional consideration

01:38that Congress has not yet acted upon.

01:40I'd be happy to provide it for the record.

01:42For example,

01:44you know, I've recommended for years

01:47that the Social Security Administration

01:50take the full death master file

01:52and provide it to the Treasury Department

01:54so we don't pay dead people.

01:56All right?

01:57And I persuaded the Congress

01:58after about 10 years,

02:00and right now it's a three-year pilot,

02:02I believe it's already saved millions

02:04of dollars, prevented fraud,

02:06prevented improper payments,

02:08that Congress should make it permanent.

02:10That's not yet done.

02:12So, let's just give you one example.

02:14So, you know,

02:15Congress has acted in some cases,

02:17but in many cases

02:18there's still more that should be done.

02:20I've recommended it.

02:21I'll provide it for the record.

02:23Yeah, I would appreciate that.

02:24I'm also going to have my staff

02:25follow up with you.

02:26I'd be happy to.

02:27Okay.

02:28Any fan of preventing frauds,

02:30a fan of mine.

02:31Okay.

02:32Well, I am a fan of that.

02:34Mr. Swigel,

02:37when my colleague was reading his chat GPT

02:42description of your agency,

02:44one of the things that he talked about

02:46and you mentioned is the nonpartisan mission of CBO.

02:49And I think you have a bit of a perception problem

02:52on the Hill about that nonpartisan mission.

02:54So, I just wanted to ask,

02:56how do you in your hiring practices

02:59try to ensure that you are hiring and training

03:02in a way that perpetuates the nonpartisan nature

03:06of what you do?

03:07Okay. No, thank you.

03:08And it's a key aspect of the agency.

03:10It's really the foundation of what we do

03:12is being nonpartisan,

03:14not taking policy positions.

03:16When we hire,

03:17we look carefully at the people we're hiring.

03:19Of course, first on the expertise

03:21and on the skills they bring,

03:22but also to make sure that they are both nonpartisan

03:26and seen as nonpartisan.

03:28And we treat a 22-year-old we're hiring differently

03:32than a 45-year-old.

03:34We understand the difference between those two,

03:38but we look at that carefully when we hire.

03:41And after people come on board,

03:43we have processes within the agency

03:45to scrutinize our work,

03:47essentially up and down and across the agency

03:50to make sure that we're down the center on the issues.

03:53Okay. Well, with that, Mr. Chairman,

03:56I yield back the rest of my time.

03:59Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

04:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Category

Transcript

Recommended