Will Congress’s expert advisory agencies lose their clout?

Congress considers the Government Accountability Office to be one of its most valuable oversight tools. Created by Congress in 1921, and originally named the General Accounting Office, it is often referred to as an independent government watchdog agency.  It was purposely designed to provide Congress with non-partisan, expert audits and legal analyses on how government was working and where it was running afoul of its statutory mandates. 

Today, however, the GAO is an endangered species. The term of its current leader, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, expires in two months. Under the terms of GAO’s founding statute, the comptroller general is appointed by the president to a 15-year term, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.  

The current president has already amply demonstrated his preference for appointees that are completely loyal to him rather than to the Constitution, the law, or congressional mandates. The government watchdog may soon be rendered toothless. 

Perhaps ironically, the timing could not be more propitious for the administration. The D.C. Court of  Appeals, in a two-to-one ruling in August, held that only the GAO has standing to sue over spending violations under the Impoundment Control Act — not the fired or furloughed federal workers, their agencies, unions or benefit-deprived publics.

The Washington Post noted last week that the president has used the current government shutdown to remake (or dissolve) much of the federal government by eliminating what he calls “Democrat agencies” and fire the thousands of employees who work for them.

The current shutdown only exacerbates the imbalance of powers between the branches as the Office of Management and Budget implements its “unitary executive” plans to shift increasing powers and functions from Congress to the president. Not only will the president have authority to name the next comptroller general, but the shutdown has effectively tied the hands of the GAO from publishing its reports, ongoing audits, investigations and court appearances. On its home page, GAO advises that its current lapse in appropriations has furloughed a majority of its workers, causing it to suspend its operations.

Meantime, another non-partisan arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, created in 1974, has taken up some of the slack by reporting last week that the economy will lose between $7 billion and $14 billion due to the government shutdown. Lost wages of federal workers and lost benefits for Americans will cause a drop in the Gross Domestic Product.

As a new congressional staffer in 1969, I was especially eager to learn as much as I could as fast as I could. Two of my issue areas were defense and foreign policy.  I quickly latched on to reports of the GAO on such matters as weapon systems cost-overruns and the impact of war spending on the economy. 

I was equally grateful for the training provided to staff on policy issues and the legislative process by the Congressional Research Service, first created in 1914 as the Legislative Reference Service in the Library of Congress. The director of the Congressional Research Service is appointed by the Librarian of Congress who in turn is nominated by the president, subject to Senate confirmation.

When the the Congressional Budget Office was created in 1974, it soon became a strong third leg in Congress’s informational triad of internal agencies that bolster the institution’s lawmaking and oversight capabilities.

Other key congressional panels comprised primarily of staff experts include the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Joint Economic Committee. The Office of Technology Assessment was also created in 1974 but abolished in 1995.

Congress’s propensity to seek-out experts and place them in these key non-partisan agencies has been attributed to the progressive era’s increasing reliance on expertise. President Woodrow Wilson, who personified the emerging progressive trends, taught government and history at Princeton before entering politics. He was a great believer in applying the scientific method to the study of government and politics.   

The progressive era also spawned a plethora of independent think tanks to conduct studies and make recommendations on public policy problems. Today think tanks run the gamut of ideological leanings and policy positions. For instance, Project 2025, a Republican agenda for governing, was published in 2023 by the conservative Heritage Foundation under the direction of Russell Vought who is today director of President Trump’s Office of Management and the Budget.  

Some politicians scoff at academics with whom they disagree as “pointy-headed intellectuals.” Congress, to its credit, has managed, for the most part, to maintain a bipartisan deference to and respect for its in-house experts, exemplified by the Congressional Research Service, Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office.       

Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran, culminating as chief-of-staff of the House Rules Committee in 1995. He is author of, “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000), and, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays” (2018).