Category Archives: Collections

Our Annual “Quick Look” at Homeland Security’s Major Acquisitions

To help it carry out its many missions, which include preventing terrorism and managing U.S. borders, the Department of Homeland Security makes major purchases like ships, air passenger screening equipment, and IT. In fact, DHS estimates it will invest more … Continue reading

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Medicare’s Financial Check-Up (video)

Nearly 60 million elderly and disabled people count on Medicare for health care coverage. Without the program, they and their families could be responsible for billions of dollars of health care costs. Medicare spent about $700 billion in 2017 and … Continue reading

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Cybersecurity—New Risks and Threats

Picture this: Atlanta’s municipal information system was hit with a cyberattack that prevented customers from accessing multiple applications, including paying bills and viewing court-related information. The Department of Justice reported indicting nine Iranians for a massive cybersecurity theft campaign on … Continue reading

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Are Acquisition Reforms Leading to Better Outcomes at DOD?

Over the past two decades, we’ve issued annual “Quick Looks” at the Department of Defense’s largest and most expensive acquisition programs. Our work continued this year with a review of DOD’s 86 major weapons programs, which totaled more than $1.66 … Continue reading

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The Nation’s Precarious Fiscal Future

The United States faces a highly challenging fiscal future. Absent change in policy, the federal fiscal path is unsustainable—debt is growing faster than the economy (GDP). This springs from the continuing gap between the amount of money the federal government … Continue reading

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After Showing Improvement, Trends for NASA’s Major Projects Slip Back

Every year, we look at NASA’s major projects to see how well they’re making progress against their cost and schedule goals—which we call our “Quick Look” review. This year, these projects included a satellite that will study polar ice sheets, … Continue reading

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The Troubled Voyage of Navy Shipbuilding

In 2007, the Navy embarked on a plan for a 330-ship fleet by 2018. Congress supported this plan, appropriating $24 billion more than the Navy’s budget request of $182 billion. Things have not gone according to plan. Today, the Navy … Continue reading

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Hangars and Housing – Maintaining DOD’s Infrastructure

The Department of Defense manages infrastructure to support military operations the world over. It maintains a global real property portfolio of over half a million facilities, with a replacement value of nearly $1 trillion. Maintaining its facilities to withstand everything … Continue reading

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Saving Dollar Bills: Reducing Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication in Federal Programs

We released our latest report today on fragmentation, overlap, and duplication in the federal government. Since 2011, we’ve been reporting on ways the government can be more efficient and save taxpayers’ money by looking for programs that work on the … Continue reading

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Office Space

The federal government spends billions of dollars every year to operate and maintain the roughly 273,000 buildings it owns or leases. But we’ve reported for years on problems with how the federal government manages its real estate—in fact, federal real … Continue reading

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