GAO’s UKRAINE SMEAR

[Published on Newsmax]

The anti-Trump chorus is breathlessly declaring the January 16, Government Accountability Office (GAO) report asserts “Trump broke the law” regarding Ukraine aid. 

That is not what the report states and that is not what happened.

The GAO serves a vital oversight function for the Federal Government.  Annually, GAO reports on waste, fraud, and mismanagement identify billions of dollars in potential savings. The Agency studiously avoids politics by outlining procedural and legal compliance issues.

GAO Report B-331564 is different, as it is incomplete on facts while overstating the Trump Administration’s noncompliance with a controversial law.

The report never admits that the Ukraine Aid in question was, in fact, released on September 11, prior to the deadline of September 30, 2019.

This omission is fundamental to the entire Ukraine matter and undermines GAO’s credibility.

The GAO report centers on the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). This was passed as part of Congress reining-in President Richard Nixon.  Nixon had impounded funds for many programs and agencies to counter Congressional spending sprees.  His actions continued a long-standing practice, going back to Thomas Jefferson, of Presidents exercising fiscal discipline to thwart Congressional overspending.

https://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/2015/04/budget-battles.html?m=0

The Congress took advantage of Nixon’s ebbing power by pushing through the ICA and other legislation to open the spending flood gates.  Discretionary spending has ballooned out of control ever since.

Presidents, Republican and Democrat, have attempted to restore the balance in budgeting and spending policy.  The GAO’s Ukraine report cites numerous court cases where Clinton and other Presidents have sought court assistance to set limits and clarify processes.

All funds were released prior to the Congressional deadline.  The delay in releasing Ukraine funds never crossed these legal lines. 

In fact, the delays fully complied with the law authorizing the funds (PL 115-232), as it explicitly stated that, “In order to obligate more than fifty percent of the amount appropriated, DOD was also required to certify to Congress that Ukraine had taken ‘substantial actions’ on defense institutional reforms’”.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued numerous “apportionment schedules” with footnotes explaining the delay in releasing the funds was to “allow for an interagency process to determine best use of such funds”.  Each memo consistently stated that, “this brief pause in obligations will not preclude DOD’s timely execution of the final policy direction.”

One part of the foreign military financing (FMF) earmarked for Ukraine was delayed only six days.

The GAO Ukraine report, clearly states that:

“The President may temporarily withhold funds from obligation—but not beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the President transmits the special message—by proposing a “deferral.”  2 U.S.C. § 684”

At no point in the Ukraine Report does the GAO find that OMB or the President triggered a deferral or impoundment.  Therefore, there was no violation of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA).

However, the GAO pours through countless memos from the OMB, as well as OMB responses to GAO questions.  Unfortunately, OMB’s responses dug avoidable holes into which the Trump Administration fell by raising needless challenges to the ICA.

OMB engaged in a battle it did not need to fight.  This triggered GAO having to recount the ICA battles from other Administrations and pointing out the flaws in OMB’s arguments.  OMB responded by not responding.  As the GAO-OMB dialogue dissipated, political rhetoric seeped-in.

The GAO stepped over their line by asserting there may be “potential impoundments” where none exist.  You either impound or you don’t.  There is no “potential”. The GAO ascribes “policy reasons” for the delay of funds without providing any evidence. 

Finally, to carve out its own place in the Impeachment, the GAO violated decades of its own professional code of conduct by declaring, “We consider a reluctance to provide a fulsome response to have constitutional significance”.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a dedicated Never-Trumper, requested the GAO Ukraine report on October 30, 2019.  He kept demanding GAO provide a report sooner versus later in a letter dated December 23, 2019.  The GAO admits that its report is a work in progress and states it is waiting on additional information from the State Department and OMB. 

Unfortunately, Thomas Armstrong, GAO General Counsel, was willing to risk the agency’s reputation as the gold standard of oversight, by prematurely releasing an incomplete and flawed report, immediately relegating it to just another politically charged smear.

FUNDING THE WALL

[Published on Newsmax]

The solution to America’s Border Wall is hiding in plain sight.

Instead of fighting what may be a losing battle with Congress, President Trump should trigger a well-established, legal, and proven good management practice of “reallocating unused federal funds” to build America’s Border Wall.

All it will take to complete the next phase of the Border Wall is the stroke of President Trump’s pen and a push of a button from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The simple solution is mining “unobligated balances” throughout the Executive Branch.

Every year funds are allocated for federal projects and programs based on estimates. Congress adds money when those estimates fall short, even if caused by waste and fraud. Funds sit idle when spending is less than expected.

Families face this situation all the time. You take cash to buy fast food and have change left over. That change ends up in a coin jar. A family member eventually takes the coin jar to a bank or Coinstar to turn pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters into easier spent dollars.

Presidents, since Lyndon Johnson, have funded their priorities mining these unobligated balances through the mechanism of a “budget sweep”. The President authorizes the Director of OMB to request Executive Branch Departments and Agencies to return unobligated and unexpended funds back to the Treasury.

Johnson funded his Great Society and the Vietnam War with the billions in “loose change” lying around Executive Branch Agencies. Nixon funded the Vietnam War. Carter funded expanding domestic programs. Reagan brought down the Soviet Empire. The Bushes fought their Iraq wars. Clinton juggled funds to stay within Republican Congressional budget limits.

Then something changed. During his eight years in office, President Obama allowed $914.8 billion in unexpended, unobligated, funds to pile-up across the federal government. He never did a budget sweep. This number continues to climb under President Trump, who has also not authorized a budget sweep.

Unexpended, unobligated funds are dutifully reported under “Assets and Balance Sheets” of the federal budget released each year by the Office of Management and Budget. These funds are documented, in detail, in every Department and Agency budget under the accounting code “1941”. For the current fiscal year, there is over $150 billion in “1941” unexpended, unobligated balances in the Defense Department alone.

An additional $1.028 trillion remains unexpended among general accounts, and $461 billion remains unspent in trust funds. While these funds are technically obligated, the fact that they languish for years raises questions about their use, management, and relevance.

There is, therefore, a total of $2.651 trillion in existing Executive Branch funds potentially available for immediate reallocation.

In June 2012, to his eternal credit, former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn issued a blistering report, “Money for Nothing” that exposed these funds for the first time. Unfortunately, not even conservative media covered it.

Senator Coburn documented this in his “Money for Nothing” report:

“In total, the federal government is projected to end fiscal 2012 with more than $2 trillion in unexpended funds that will be carried over to next year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. While more than two-thirds of this amount is obligated for specific purposes, $687 billion remains unobligated, meaning it is essentially money for nothing."

The existence, processes, and uses of unexpended, unobligated funds were reported by the few conservatives among Trump’s Transition Team, to no avail. OMB officials were given detailed 1941 account spread sheets, as were several Cabinet Secretaries and their staffs. Nothing happened.

Trump must take control of the Border Wall project with processes and funds that already exist and are in plain sight.

CONGRESSIONAL COINSTAR

The annual spending fight is looming once again on Congress’ autumn horizon. This ritualized partisan combat over the debt and the deficit will once again dominate the news. Politicians and pundits will once again use dueling calculations to fuel their heated rhetoric without any hope of common ground or real results. This year may even feature dueling scholarly analyses on how rampant government spending may be a good thing. http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2013/fiscal/pdf/barro.pdf

There is a way for Congress to break out of this dismal cycle.

Every year the federal government has money left over. Lots of money.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) documented this in his “Money for Nothing” report:

"In total, the federal government is projected to end fiscal 2012 with more than $2 trillion in unexpended funds that will be carried over to next year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. While more than two-thirds of this amount is obligated for specific purposes, $687 billion remains unobligated, meaning it is essentially money for nothing."

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=612f09e3-e950-480e-84f8-1e54d2e6bc30  [pages 1-2]

Detailed charts on this phenomenon can be found at: “Balances of Budget Authority; Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2012,” White House Office of Management and Budget, page 8; http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012BALANCES/pdf/BUDGET-2012-BALANCES.pdf .

I first encountered this in 2007, when a project team was promoting development of a museum for the National Park Service. NPS leaders contended that they would need new funding to cover Phase I design costs. A few minutes reviewing OMB’s public documents uncovered NPS holding onto $73 million in “Unobligated balances carried forward”. This was more than enough to cover the $12.5 million in Phase I costs.

Welcome to Washington’s most secret budget game. Every Department and Agency, and program units within every Department and Agency, have unobligated funds squirreled away. This adds up to the $687 billion identified by Senator Coburn.

It would be an easy act of Congress to include a mandate for returning every agencies’ “Unobligated balances carried forward” as part of a budget resolution, continuing resolution, or within each appropriation bill.

Such a return of “Unobligated balances carried forward” to general use would immediately cut the annual federal deficit in half. It would also delay any increase in the federal debt limit by at least ten months. Most importantly, it would be an easy bi-partisan vote for sound fiscal management.

Think of these “Unobligated balances carried forward” as the coins every family has stashed in drawers, under couches, in the glove compartments of cars, and maybe in a piggy bank or pickle jar. Many years ago Coinstar https://www.coinstar.com/  found a way to make money by installing machines to sort coins and turn these extraneous “found funds” into usable dollars.

Bringing $685 billion of our unused tax dollars back into use, and avoiding the need for $685 billion in new spending, is as simple as a family taking their pickle jar of coins to a sorting machine.

Why can’t Members of Congress, or their staff, figure this stuff out?