The leadership of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in response to the report that they plan to hold an oversight hearing on duplication and inefficiencies in federal programs.
"The weak economy and our unsustainable federal deficits demand that we streamline government programs wherever it makes sense to do so," said chair Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, in a joint statement.
"The GAO report reminds us of the many programs, government-wide, that aren’t performing as efficiently and effectively as we need them to," they added, continuing, "We will focus on the opportunities that exist to reduce the cost of government operations, to increase revenue, and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the government."
In particular they called attention to findings in the report that 15 federal agencies are involved in food safety and demonstrate bad coordination and use of funds, that there are some 80 economic development programs across the government with little efficiency, effectiveness, or metrics, that surface transportation has over 100 programs that yield no documentation of results, and that no one is coordinating an array of agencies involved in bio-defense or financial literacy.
