National Resources Committee 



istrative conditions and actions that it might desire. 

 Furthermore, it was not necessary that sucli inquiry 

 should be directed bj' formal action of either House, 

 or by the two acting concurrently, but might be de- 

 manded by any committee having jurisdiction over the 

 raising, appro^jriation, or expenditure of public funds. 

 And, finally, the General Accounting Office, acting on 

 its own initiative, could at any time make such investi- 

 gations as it deemed desirable and make such recom- 

 mendations to Congress regarding the conduct of ad- 

 ministrative affairs as it saw fit. That this office has 

 failed lamentably to meet expectations as regards the 

 exercise of its mvestigatory function is unquestionable. 

 Responsibility for this must be divided between the 

 office, which, from the first, seemed to fail to appre- 

 ciate its responsibilities and opportunities in this field, 

 and Congress and its committees, which equally failed 

 to avail themselves of the resources of this office. 



In apportioning responsibility for lack of action, an 

 especial measure of blame would seem to fall upon the 

 House Counnittee on Expenditures in the Executive 

 Departments. This Committee was created as one of 

 the standing committees of the House in 1927 to take 

 the place of the 11 standing committees on expendi- 

 tures in the several departments and on public build- 

 ings which for years had been moribund so far as any 

 important action by them was concerned. That, as 

 in the case of the General AccoimtLng Office, it was the 

 expectation of those responsible for its creation that, 

 in this committee, the House would have an agency 

 through wMch it could keep in current touch with the 

 operations of the administrative branch, is evident 

 from a statement by j\Ir. Martin B. Madden, the first 

 chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations 

 after the passage of the Budget and Accounting Act, 

 1921. In an article ^- describing the new budget sys- 

 tem, after calling attention to the faulty system then 

 existing under which responsibility for the scrutiny of 

 expenditures was divided among 11 different com- 

 mittees, he wrote: 



The remedy for this situation is the abolition of the 11 

 committees and the creation of a single virile committee on 

 public expenditures. Such an organization functioning with 

 the General Accounting OfSce would, in my opinion, be a 

 factor for an incalculable amount of good. Practically the 

 only systematic attention now given by Congress to the in- 

 vestigation of expenditures is the time devoted by the appro- 

 priating committees in the course of the examination of the 

 budget estimates. The work must of necessity be incomplete. 

 The time available for visaing budget estimates and the mag- 

 nitude of the work makes it impossible for any committee or 

 committees to perform the two duties simultaneously and do 

 justice to both. The creation of a centralized committee on 

 public expenditures would relieve the appropriating committees 



■* "The New System in Government" Saturday Evening Post, June 0, 

 1923. 



and at the same time would provide an agency whose thorough 

 investigations would be of incalculable value to the appropri- 

 ating committees in the performance of their duties. 



Like the General Accounting Office, this committee 

 has not been able to accomplish what had be*n hoped. 

 It has not found a way to work in cooperation with 

 tlie General Accounting Office for the investigation of 

 administrative conditions and the formulation of 

 plans for improving administrative organization and 

 practices. 



In view of the foregoing, it is a matter of interest 

 that in the bill making provision for the reorganization 

 of the administrative branch (S. 3331, 75th Cong., 3d 

 sess., 1938), which was discussed at length by the Con- 

 gress in its last session, consideration was given to the 

 situation as above described. Not only did the bill re- 

 emphasize the function of the proposed reorganized 

 General Accounting Office as an investigatory agency 

 attached to and subject to the direction of Congress, 

 but it made provision for a new committee to be known 

 as the Joint Committee on Public Accounts which 

 should be composed of four members each, two from 

 the majority and two from the minority party, selected 

 from the membership of and by each of the following 

 six committees: Senate Committee on Finance, Senate 

 Committee on Appropriations, Senate Committee on 

 Expenditures in the Executive Departments, House 

 Committee on Ways and Means, House Conunittee on 

 Appropriations, and House Committee on Expendi- 

 tures in the Executive Departments. The provision 

 that half the membership should be selected from the 

 majority party and half from the minority party was 

 made with the intent that, so far as practicable, the 

 committee should have and act in a nonpartisan char- 

 acter. 



A serious omission in the General Accounting Act, 

 1921, and the rules of the two chambers adopted at 

 that time was the failure to provide that the reports 

 of the General Accounting Office should be referred to 

 a specified committee for consideration and action. 

 Due to this omission, the reports of the Comptroller 

 General, inadequate as they have been, have received 

 little or no attention at the hands of Congress. The 

 bill above referred to has sought to correct this. It 

 thus provided that "the Auditor General shall make 

 such investigations and reports as shall be requested by 

 either House of Congress or by the Joint Committee 

 on Public Accounts, or by any other committee of 

 either House having jurisdiction over expenditures, 

 appropriations, or revenue" ; that all such reports shall 

 be made to the Joint Committee on Public Accounts 

 when the Congress is not in session; that it shall be 

 the duty of the Joint Committee to examine and study 



