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GAO Managing Director for Strategic Issues Chris Mihm on the government agencies that are wasting the most money.
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Our top story tonight the newest areas a government that are officially named.
As high risk for wasting -- abusing your tax dollars.
The Government Accountability Office puts out the report every two years.
And the one released just today specifies thirty different areas in danger of creating wasteful spending.
Or even falling victim of fraud this report affects every American you and me and our money since.
Exclusively to -- For example.
See everybody is really going is -- maintenance GAO's managing director for strategic issues thank you so much for coming on the show.
-- tell you what the ones that really jumped out of me out of the gate.
Was about the department of interior in saying that they don't have reasonable assurance.
That they are collecting their share of revenue.
From the drilling that's going on federal lands that they just they don't now.
Have no idea if they're able to really calculate if they're getting what's due to the feds and the reason this jumped out of me.
Is it is the president mention today in his state of the union that he was getting -- royalties from drilling on federal land.
Where this energy security trust how is it possible.
They just don't know if they're collecting the right amount and.
Exactly that's a longstanding problem that they've had -- the department of interior.
We put them on the high -- a high risk question number of years ago for for three reasons one was the reorganization that they were undergoing in in terms of mineral management.
The second was the royalties issue exactly which -- touching on and a third was making sure that they had the right people petroleum engineers and other specialists in place.
That could actually -- run the organization.
This time because of progress they made just on the reorganization part we -- able to narrow the high risk issue.
But said that the problems remain on the on the come on both the revenue side and on the people management side.
They really do need to make sure that they have the right people in place that are order dated petroleum engineers and other allied professions that can be overseeing work in that department.
So they could just be giving away oil because they have no idea what's going on how much could this be costing -- back.
That's that's something that we're still looking into I mean we know it's an awful lot of money and we know that it's been going on for quite a long time.
And one of the things that they need to get on top of and didn't -- obviously Asian.
Said at the outset I mean this is -- we're talking across all of the high risk issues.
Tens of billions of dollars in some of these hottest issues have been on therefore since 1990.
We've had is some of these same issues on there and so we're -- -- while there has been progress while there's been a lot of savings when things have come off admit it really is quite egregious when they're on their year after year costing taxpayers so much.
Absolutely and one that I always see -- the headline is Medicare Medicare program.
You guys estimated that there were 44 billion.
44.
Billion in improper payments Medicare payments in 2012 alone.
That's an enormous number how is that happening.
There's -- it's an enormous number and on the other hand it also signifies a bit of progress progress in sense of which.
I realize -- -- okay we're down to 44 billion that's good that you know look it's not so much of what popping champagne corks over that.
But nevertheless what -- that's that's progress in the sense that it is actually coming down and what you're getting is better.
Better data that's allowing data for targeting of resources both upfront and then later -- going after you know if there's whether if there's been a problem identified doing recovery -- -- going after getting the money.
That's didn't Medicare improper payments is one of those issues that I mentioned that has been on the high risk what's right from the very beginning.
He mentioned the post office in this list as well we have the postmaster general coming up who it seems like is really trying to make his best effort to make a go of it there.
What we are suggestions for the post office what were the problems you -- there.
-- the big problem with the Postal Service and in obviously know that the congress recognizes this and of course.
You know that did you know that the postmaster general recognizes this it's the issue the basic business model -- -- -- You know they first class mail obviously has been declining over recent years as we all move to text messages and email and you know in the rest.
And of course now they're losing even more in terms of periodicals as we get more more of that over iPods and and and the rest they need to really focus on an -- to incident -- the question is is what is the business model of the Postal Service going forward that's obviously one of their big challenges and you saw recently at least one of their proposals was to go today.
To reduce the the daily deliveries are -- rather to cut out Saturday delivery obviously import of some controversy.
But it's -- you know it's it's the big question of the business model that they struggle -- Absolutely we're gonna tackle that right now I wish and it's been a whole hour on this reports there's so much in here -- work thank you for coming on tax -- -- my she gave it.
My pleasure any time turning.
