Slashing GAO funds would hurt DoD transparency, lawmaker says

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) used a House Armed Services Committee hearing on a must-pass national defense policy bill Tuesday to bemoan proposed cuts to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) budget.

The House Appropriations Committee last month advanced a fiscal 2026 funding bill that could cut GAO’s appropriation by nearly half.

This is bad news for Congressional efforts to monitor the Department of Defense and related agencies, Garamendi said during a Tuesday amendment session on the House Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“I cannot commend the General Accounting Office enough for the work they have done to keep the department honest,” Garamendi said. 

“I will note with considerable unhappiness that our Appropriation Committee has made a drastic reduction in the GAO’s budget,” Garamendi said.  “And it will definitely affect all of us who often rely upon the GAO for information, for insight and review of what’s going at the Department of Defense. It is a 50% reduction in the GAO funding, and that will have a dramatic our ability to know and understand what is happening at the Department of Defense.”

Garamendi suggested GAO had been caught in the crosshairs of the “boys and girls” at the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Maybe we can stop that. Maybe we can turn it around,” Garamendi said. He added that such defunding of the Congressional watchdog against waste, fraud and abuse would have a “profound effect on our ability to get information that we need to do our job.”