Economy Act: An Overview

Filed 46m ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Corncob

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Government Accountability Office testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee on the Economy Act, a 1932 law letting federal agencies buy goods and services from one another. GAO's testimony stressed the law's limits: an agency can only procure through it what it was already authorized to procure, and cannot use it to dodge appropriations restrictions, start new programs, or patch a budget hole.

The testimony also covered how Economy Act deals must comply with broader appropriations principles, including the bona fide needs rule and the Antideficiency Act, and referenced GAO's own history of legal decisions interpreting the statute.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Ninety-plus years old and this law still needs a chaperone explaining it can't be used to sneak money where Congress didn't send it. That somebody has to say this out loud to a room full of appropriators tells you the temptation never really goes away. Old laws get tested the same way an old fence gets tested, by seeing if anyone's watching when you lean on it.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Corncob · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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