GAO would need to cut 1,000 employees under House bill

The Government Accountability Office would need to cut 1,000 employees under a 25% budget cut being advanced in the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2027 spending bill.

The GOP-controlled House Appropriations legislative branch subcommittee voted along party lines today to approve a spending bill that would allocate a total of $7.3 billion for legislative branch activities in fiscal 2027, $1.2 billion below the budget request.

For House and joint congressional items, the bill includes just $5.4 billion, roughly $125 million below last year’s spending levels.

The spending bill would include a $55 million increase for the U.S. Capitol Police, a $1.5 million increase for the Congressional Budget Office and a $23 million increase for the Library of Congress, compared to 2026 levels. But, the bill would allocate $612 million for GAO, $200 million below the agency’s 2026 enacted level and $248 million below its 2027 request.

The bill would also limit GAO’s ability to sue the executive branch to obtain relevant agency records and information under the Impoundment Control Act. The White House has criticized GAO over multiple decisions that found the Trump administration violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding congressionally appropriated funds.

Democrats on the committee hit out at the GAO cuts during Thursday’s markup. House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) said the cuts would “weaken oversight of this administration and increase the risk of mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.”

“These steep reductions would force at least 1,000 layoffs at GAO, diminishing its ability to hold agencies accountable,” DeLauro said. “That stacks the deck in favor of anyone who would abuse positions of public trust for their own private gain.”

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he would “probably” offer an amendment to address the GAO cuts during the full committee’s mark of the legislative branch bill.

Hoyer also remarked that the legislative branch as a whole is “woefully under-resourced” to oversee an “extraordinarily large executive branch.”

“GAO is the specific agency charged with the responsibility of getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse, and you cut it 25%,” Hoyer said to his Republican colleagues. “I don’t get that. You cut IRS enforcement very substantially, not in this bill but in the other committee. My point being, you are restraining the ability of the government to oversee and root out waste, fraud and abuse.”

House Appropriations legislative branch subcommittee Chairman David Valadao (R-Calif.) did not directly address GAO’s cuts, but said that “as we worked within our allocation, we did our best to respond to the priorities of the members in executing their constitutional duties while supporting the operations of the Congress, the Capitol complex, and the people who serve it.”

GAO in the crosshairs

In contrast to the House proposal, GAO is requesting a $860 million budget for fiscal 2027, a 5.9% increase over 2026.

But even with that increase, acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown told Senate appropriators earlier this month that GAO’s workforce would need to be reduced to 3,100 people, a decrease of more than 450 staff compared to agency’s 2024 staffing levels.

House appropriators also sought to cut GAO’s budget by 50% last year, but the Senate ultimately restored the agency’s funding during spending negotiations.

Senate appropriators have yet to mark up their version of the 2027 legislative branch bill.

House Republicans, however, have been generally more receptive to the Trump administration’s push to weaken GAO.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has repeatedly hit out at GAO. During a speech at the National Conservatism Conference last year, Vought said, “we are not big fans of GAO. They are a quasi-legislative independent entity. Again, something that shouldn’t exist.”

And in guidance to federal agencies last fall, OMB minimized GAO’s role in executive branch oversight, calling GAO’s opinions “non-binding.”

More recently, during an April 15 Senate Budget Committee hearing, Vought reiterated his disagreement with GAO’s impoundment control decisions. He also called GAO “typically wrong and very partisan.”

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