While the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), not a real agency of the United States government, indiscriminately fires federal workers, some in key posts such as health care research and air traffic control, claiming illusory, if not downright false, savings in the process, there is some real money to be salvaged if only our lawmakers in Washington would get off their keisters and get to work doing what they were sent to Congress to do in the first place.

Wow! That’s the longest, wordiest lede I’ve ever written. But hopefully, you get the point. The government doesn’t need an unelected outsider to tell it how and where to save money. Rather, it needs our elected representatives to do their jobs.

For the 2024 fiscal year, the federal government made roughly a $6.8 trillion business in terms of outlays to fund a broad array of programs and operations. But the latest “High-Risk” series from the Government Accountability Office identifies a number of programs with serious vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or in need of transformation.

Efforts to address these areas have already netted hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer savings. Indeed, according to the GAO, which is the investigative arm of Congress, over the past 19 years, these financial benefits totaled nearly $759 billion. That’s an average of a whopping $40 billion annually. But more needs to be done.

Like previous updates, GAO’s latest biennial tome — 300-plus pages — outlines actions needing attention by the Executive Branch and Congress to address thousands of open GAO recommendations and bring about even further savings. “Continued congressional oversight is essential to achieve greater progress, and legislation is needed in some cases,” the report points out. “Lasting solutions to high-risk problems save billions of dollars, improve service to the public, and increase government performance and accountability.”

Specifically, the report identifies 38 high-risk areas. Many of them have nothing to do with this magazine’s subject matter, like food safety and prison reform. But several do. So let’s dig into them.

Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac

GAO says it is “essential” for Congress to clarify the federal role for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been in federal conservatorship since 2008 and leave the government exposed to another downturn like the ’08 financial fiasco.

At the same time, both Ginnie Mae and the Federal Housing Administration have greatly expanded their portfolios, again leaving Uncle Sam in peril from economic disasters.

In general, the report calls for the numerous housing agencies to strengthen oversight of the mortgage finance system. Department of Housing and Urban Development Sec. Scott Turner has said he would “quarterback” the process of releasing Fannie and Freddie from conservatorship, and he has swept their boards clean of Democrats. But HUD, of course, has no oversight authority over the GSEs or their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The GAO notes that the federal role in housing garnered a high-risk rating based on its analysis through the end of the Biden Administration. Therefore, the rating could change depending on what the new White House has in mind. So far, there has been talk — just talk — of recapitalizing and releasing Fannie and Freddie.

According to the GAO, the Treasury Department has made commitments of financial support to the enterprises in the form of stock purchase agreements. As of December, Fannie and Freddie had collectively received $191.4 billion in federal support. But if they were to incur major losses down the road, they could draw needed amounts from their remaining $254.1 billion in Treasury commitments.

The GSEs’ use of federal guarantees to support housing policy objectives ensures that private lenders receive timely payments on their investments. But in the process, the report points out, the risk of borrower default is transferred to the government.

“We designated this area as high risk because of this significant fiscal exposure and because objectives for the future federal role remain unestablished, such as the structure of the enterprises,” the report says.

Calling congressional action “fundamental,” it says “it will be difficult to resolve the federal role in housing finance until Congress enacts objectives for the enterprises’ exit from conservatorship and their future structure.”

Specifically, GAO wants to see legislation that establishes objectives for the future federal role in housing finance, including a transition plan that enables the enterprises to exit federal conservatorship and considers the role of all relevant federal entities, including FHA and Ginnie Mae.

The GAO also wants Ginnie Mae to evaluate the adequacy of its current guarantee fee for single-family mortgage-backed securities and report to Congress with recommendations, including revising the fee. And it wants the FHA to specify the conditions under which its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund could withstand losses without risking the need for supplemental funding and comply with a capital ratio consistent with such conditions.

FEMA And The NFIP

Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program, which has been on GAO’s hit list since 2006, with two competing goals — keeping flood coverage affordable while keeping the program fiscally solvent. But in emphasizing affordability by charging policyholders discounted premiums that do not reflect the full risk of flood loss, there is insufficient premium revenue to pay claims. Consequently, the financial burden of flood risk has been, at least in part, transferred to taxpayers.

As GAO previously recommended, the Federal Emergency Management Agency adjusted its rate-setting methodology in October 2021, improving the accuracy of the premiums charged and reducing financial risk to Uncle Sam. The result was a savings of $1.24 billion from fiscal years 2022 through 2024.

Congress has enacted 33 short-term extensions to the NFIP since fiscal year 2017, including one in March. But the GAO says Congress should consider comprehensive reform of the NFIP to improve the program’s solvency and the nation’s flood resilience. Lawmakers have vowed to finally address the program’s issues head-on. But they’ve said that dozens of times in the past, and so far nothing.

FEMA generally gets good grades from the GAO. “Since this area was added to the High-Risk List in 2006, FEMA has taken important steps to help move NFIP toward financial solvency,” the report says.

But the agency maintains that more comprehensive reform is necessary to help balance NFIP’s competing goals. Specifically, it wants Congress to address the program’s debt. “FEMA is unlikely to repay its debt to Treasury and attempting to do so would likely lead some policyholders to drop coverage,” it warns.

The agency also wants lawmakers to implement full-risk premiums, noting that discounted premiums obscure the program’s exposure to risk, contribute to policyholders’ misperception of flood risk, and discourage private sector involvement. And it wants them to encourage greater consumer participation. As it is, some homeowners underestimate their flood risk and overestimate the amount of federal assistance they might receive after a disaster.

Another recommendation calls for Congress to remove barriers to private sector coverage, which would take some of the load off Uncle Sam. So far, though, FEMA believes private coverage does not satisfy the law’s continuous coverage requirement. And it maintains that it cannot give partial refunds to consumers who switch coverage midstream.

Federal Disaster Assistance

A new area of concern for the GAO this year deals with improving the delivery of federal disaster assistance, which is currently fragmented across more than 30 federal entities, each with its own set of requirements and timeframes. Moreover, there is limited data sharing across agencies, making it more difficult to assist survivors.

The agency says Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency must address the fractured approach to disaster recovery. It also wants lawmakers to strengthen FEMA’s disaster capacity and workforce. And it says Congress should establish permanent statutory authority for a disaster assistance program administered by one agency that responds to unmet needs in a timely manner.

(In March, HUD Sec. Turner began the process of streamlining and simplifying the department’s disaster recovery processes. “HUD is committed to helping Americans recover from natural disasters, and a key part of our commitment is streamlining outdated and cumbersome processes to ensure there is no delay in providing critical resources to the communities we are called to serve,” he said in announcing the move.)

Federal Buildings Maintenance And Operations

Uncle Sam is one of the nation’s largest property holders. Annual maintenance and operating costs for its 277,000 buildings exceeded $10.3 billion in fiscal year 2023. Managing that property has been designated high risk since 2003 because disposing of unneeded and underused property has been difficult.

This year, the GAO added building conditions to this high-risk area for several reasons. Two key factors: Not only did the government’s annual maintenance and operating costs exceed $10.3 billion in fiscal year 2023, maintenance and repairs have been deferred to the tune of $370 billion as of fiscal 2024.

The agency says there are 58 “open” recommendations related to “rightsizing” federal real property. Among them: Departments should provide more information to Congress and the public regarding the deferred maintenance and repair backlog, including, at a minimum, the amount needed to support their missions. Also, the Office of Management and Budget should better identify and shed unnecessary space, and the General Services Administration, the government’s landlord, should help agencies improve the disposal process.

Financial Regulatory Systems

The financial regulatory systems demand modernization, an issue the GAO first highlighted in 2009 during the financial crisis. In particular, the agency says the Federal Reserve should improve procedures so that decisions to escalate supervisory concerns happen in a more timely manner, and Congress should consider designating a federal regulator for certain crypto asset markets.

Specifically, it recommends that the Treasury Department’s Financial Stability Oversight Council should conduct regular and comprehensive reviews of its effectiveness, the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should develop and implement procedures for systematically reviewing regulations, and the Fed should be more specific about rules on when to escalate supervisory concerns.

The agency also wants Congress to consider requiring non-capital triggers that require early and forceful regulatory actions tied to unsafe banking practices before they impair capital.