The Government Accountability Office(GAO), is charged with auditing the entire federal government, and making recommendations to Congress. The GAO has been around since 1923. Dare I say, they're not doing their job properly.

Also, they are the auditing arm of Congress and do not have any independent authority. The GAO has about 3000 employees.

Here is a brief list of recommendations, for making the GAO into what it must be, to accomplish their core-responsibility of making sure the government is efficient.

Item 1:

Make them an independent agency, with the same level of autotomy as the Post Office.

Item 2:

We will need another 2000 employees in the GAO. Enough staff to protect them from the political attacks from the rest of the government, and more staff to do real auditing of government accounting systems.

Item 3:

The GAO Comptroller of the U.S. Government is a 15-year appointed position. Shorten it to 3 years.

Item 4:

The GAO needs a 'purchasing officer strike force.' A highly skilled selected team, that does nothing but audit the performance and daily operations, of all purchasing officers who sign off on government contracts.

Item 5:

GAO audits and reports must be 100% transparent and all information given out weekly to the medias, citizens, members of Congress and the White House. There needs to be such a high level of spotlight placed on every aspect of government auditing, that nothing escapes the bright light of exposure.

The Comptroller General needs to hold weekly, Sunday evening press conferences, that last 3 hours, regarding everything the GAO did the previous week.

This to me, is the level of thinking ALL members of Congress need to have.