Testimony before the House Committee on the Budget - Congress's Constitutional Power of the Purse and the Government Accountability Office's Role to Serve that Power

Abstract

In 1921, Congress created the General Accounting Office - now the Government Accountability Office - through the Budget and Accounting Act to assist it in the discharge of its core constitutional powers, including the power of the purse.9 Congress created this independent, nonpartisan office in the legislative branch "because it believed that it 'needed an officer, responsible to it alone, to check upon the application of public funds in accordance with appropriations.'"10 The Budget and Accounting Act vested GAO with the authority to "investigate, at the seat of government or elsewhere, all matters relating to the receipt, disbursement, and application of public funds . . . ."11 In addition, this Act transferred from the Comptroller of the Treasury to the Comptroller General the authority to issue legal decisions to executive branch officials concerning the use and availability of public money.12

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 11, 2020
Accession Number
AD1166591

Entities

People

  • Thomas H. Armstrong

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Business Administration
  • Comptrollers
  • Congress
  • Deficiencies
  • Department Of Defense
  • District Of Columbia
  • Environmental Protection
  • Executives
  • Governments
  • House Of Representatives
  • Judicial Branch
  • Law
  • Money
  • National Governments
  • President (United States)
  • Public Administration
  • Supreme Court
  • United States
  • United States Government

Readers

  • Defense Financial Management and Audit.
  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Public Financial Management and Budgeting