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Latest Policy Publications
POGO’s experts push policymakers to enact commonsense reforms that tackle waste, corruption, and abuse of power; hold those who’ve violated the public trust accountable; protect our constitutional rights; and make the government work for all people.
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Analysis
Victory for Open Government: The Data Act Passes the House!
POGO applauds the House of Representatives for passing the bipartisan Digital Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act today, a critical bill that would revolutionize federal spending transparency and help prevent bureaucratic waste, fraud, and abuse.
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Analysis
Open Government Plans 2.0: Some Agencies Make Strides, Others Just Go Through the Motions
On April 9, federal agencies across the government released updates of their Open Government Plans, a key component of President Obama's Open Government Initiative. Overall, the results have been mixed.
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Analysis
FEMA Leaves Two Thirds of Money It’s Owed for Improper Payments on the Table
One of POGO's areas of concern is the recovery of "improper payments." Many agencies have collected only a small percentage of the taxpayer money they have wrongly spent through overpayments, duplicate payments, payments for services not actually rendered, payments t...
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Analysis
Failed Equipment, Flawed Designs Plague Lockheed Littoral Combat Ship
POGO sent a letter today to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees recommending that an expensive and severely flawed variant of the Littoral Combat Ship program be eliminated. The letter comes on the heels of POGO's release of Navy documents revealing serious cracking...
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Analysis
Federal Court Upholds Ban on Contractor Campaign Donations
This week, a federal judge in Washington, citing the government's interest in preventing corruption, refused to block enforcement of a law that bans federal contractors from donating to political candidates and parties.
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Analysis
Air Force Lifts Booz Allen Suspension, Contractor Admits to “Broader Systemic Ethical Deficiencies” and “Additional Improper Actions”
On Friday, Booz Allen Hamilton announced that its San Antonio office was removed from the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) and regained full eligibility to compete for new federal contracts. Booz Allen entered into a three-year administrative agreement with the U.S. Air For...
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Analysis
V-22 Morocco Crash Latest in Program Expert Says Should Have Been Stopped
A V-22 Osprey crashed during a training exercise in Morocco yesterday, killing two U.S. Marines and severely injuring two others. The cause of this particular accident is unknown, but some crashes in the past have involved a dangerous flying condition of which the V-22 is pron...
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Analysis
GAO Finds Pentagon Still Can’t Keep Track of Its Contractors
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released the second of three annual reviews of Department of Defense (DoD) service contract inventories. As you know, POGO has repeatedly called for the government to improve the quality of these annual inventories, which are cruc...
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Analysis
Senate Subcommittee Considers True Cost of Service Contractors
The government must create a model to comprehensively compare service costs between the private, public, and contracting sectors in order to effectively spend taxpayers’ money.
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Analysis
Senators Introduce Bill to Reel in Excessive Contractor Compensation
Last week, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) proposed the Commonsense Contractor Compensation Act of 2012 (S. 2198) to reduce taxpayer reimbursement of government contractor compensation. The bill would apply a $400,000 compensation cap to all contracto...
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Analysis
Key Member of Congress Lends Support to Whistleblower Robert MacLean
Representatives Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) have submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of Robert MacLean--a whistleblower who revealed wrongdoing in the Transportation Security A...
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Analysis
Members of Congress Oppose Using Budget Gimmicks to Fund the Pentagon
Overseas contingency operations (OCO) funds, which have been used to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, should only be used to fund emergency military operations, according to a recent letter from six Republican Representatives to the House Appropriations Committee.