THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD KNOW WHAT IT OWNS, SPENDS & DOES.

JUSTICE · POLITICAL JUSTICE

Published by | Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 12:59 AM ET

Tags: Federal Audits · Government Accountability · Constitutional Oversight · Public Spending · Agency Reform

Dear fellow American proletariat: If your household cannot account for its money, the bank eventually has questions. If a federal institution cannot account for its money, the public is frequently handed a strategic plan explaining how enthusiastically it values accountability. The strategic plan has illustrations. The arithmetic may remain unavailable.

American Proletariat proposes a recurring, published, whole-of-government audit that asks what each federal agency is legally authorized to do, what it spends, what it accomplishes, where its functions overlap, whose rights it affects and whether its operations can be improved. Auditing does not mean assuming every public servant is corrupt. It means refusing to treat an institution's age, budget or political connections as proof that it works.

THE MANDATE

Require every executive agency and federal program to undergo a coordinated review of legal authority, financial statements, internal controls, contracts, staffing, performance, civil-rights compliance, cybersecurity, and public-service outcomes. Publish consistent, accessible results while protecting classified information, private records and legitimate investigative material.

The review would classify recommendations as maintain, repair, consolidate, transfer, redesign or propose lawful abolition. These are possible findings, not predetermined quotas. A program that protects patients, veterans, disaster survivors or constitutional liberties must not be shut down merely because its spreadsheet looks complicated. Conversely, a prestigious building and a lengthy acronym are not reasons to fund a function forever.

ROOTS & HISTORY

Congress enacted the Inspector General Act of 1978 to establish independent oversight offices responsible for detecting waste, fraud and abuse and improving efficiency. Inspectors general conduct audits, inspections and investigations with statutory independence and reporting responsibilities to both agency leadership and Congress. This existing work is part of the foundation, not something AP can honestly claim to have invented. (Source 01)

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 expanded financial-management obligations across major federal agencies and helped institutionalize audited agency financial statements. The Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act also requires executive agencies to maintain and assess internal controls. The Government Accountability Office updated its Green Book standards in May 2025, effective beginning with fiscal year 2026, with stronger attention to fraud, improper payments and information-security risk. (Sources 02, 03)

Existing audit requirements, however, are not the same as one comprehensible inventory of every program's legal authority, cost, service and outcome. That gap is central to AP's proposed reform.

TODAY · THE GOVERNMENT'S OWN FINDINGS

In March 2026, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Office of Management and Budget's federal program inventory covered more than 2,600 programs but still failed to satisfy 13 of 20 statutory requirements. Among the omissions were some defense, acquisition and foreign-assistance programs, as well as required spending and performance details. That is an incomplete inventory, not a finding that 2,600 programs were fraudulent. (Source 04)

GAO's March 19, 2026 audit could not express an opinion on the federal government's fiscal year 2025 consolidated financial statements. Principal obstacles included longstanding Defense Department financial-management weaknesses, problems accounting for transactions among federal entities and deficiencies in the process of preparing consolidated statements. A disclaimer means auditors lacked sufficient appropriate evidence to give an overall opinion; it is not itself proof that the entire reported balance was stolen. (Source 05)

The Defense Department's eighth annual full-scope agency-wide audit, released in December 2025, likewise received a disclaimer of opinion and covered approximately $4.6 trillion in reported assets. The fact that this was the eighth audit is important: claiming the Pentagon has never been audited would be false. The problem is repeated failure to produce sufficiently auditable consolidated statements, not the absence of any audit attempt. (Source 06)

GAO's February 2025 High-Risk List identified 38 areas of federal operations especially vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement, or needing major transformation. Its May 2026 duplication report identified 610 remaining matters for Congress and recommendations to agencies, of which 97 were new, and estimated that addressing open opportunities could yield $100 billion or more in future financial benefits. These are potential benefits, not guaranteed money sitting in an unmarked Treasury drawer. (Sources 07, 08)

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress can create new disclosure duties, strengthen audit statutes, appropriate oversight funds, amend agency missions and reorganize institutions it established by law. The executive branch can improve management, internal controls and certain administrative arrangements within existing authority. Neither branch may lawfully disregard appropriations, due process, civil-service protections, statutory benefit entitlements or the Constitution simply because an audit recommended efficiency.

A constitutional review should distinguish genuine legal defects from disagreements about policy. An office is not unconstitutional merely because AP believes it should be eliminated. Findings involving Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights, equal protection, statutory discrimination protections, federalism or Tribal sovereignty must identify the exact governing authority, affected conduct and proper remedy, subject to independent judicial review.

THE PLAN · OPEN THE BOOKS, THEN FIX THE WORK

01 · BUILD THE COMPLETE INVENTORY

Create one searchable register of every agency, component, program, grant, contract, office, asset category and major statutory function, with its governing law, appropriation, staffing, location and public point of accountability. Show when records are missing, duplicative or withheld for lawful security reasons. No imaginary precision: the database must distinguish verified figures from provisional ones.

02 · AUDIT FINANCES & CONTROLS

Use independent auditors, existing inspectors general and GAO standards to assess balances, transactions, improper-payment risks, procurement, grants, cybersecurity and corrective actions. Publish comparable results and deadlines. A failed audit should trigger a remediation plan, not an automatically canceled patient benefit or a public-relations trophy.

03 · TEST PURPOSE, RIGHTS & RESULTS

For each program, compare its statutory mandate with actual services, quality, timeliness, access, costs and enforceable rights. Include the people and jurisdictions receiving services, not just the managers issuing presentations. Review overlapping programs for consolidation opportunities without presuming that different agencies serving different populations are duplicates.

04 · REQUIRE INDEPENDENT CORRECTION

Publish audit findings and agency responses, with responsible officers, corrective deadlines and independent follow-up. Give whistleblowers effective lawful channels and guard against retaliatory dismissals. Proposals to abolish, transfer or merge statutory functions must receive congressional authorization where required and a continuity plan before implementation.

05 · RETURN EVERY YEAR

Make annual financial and performance reporting a permanent discipline, with rotating deep reviews for high-risk functions. Preserve historical results so the public can compare whether promised fixes actually happened. An audit conducted once, framed, admired and never revisited is interior decoration.

THE TEN-YEAR LEDGER

The first-year forecast must estimate the cost of the program inventory, independent audit staff and contracts, data systems, classified review safeguards, agency responses, rights assessments and service-continuity planning. Count existing oversight budgets as baseline spending rather than automatically labeling every audit dollar new. Identify the required staffing and implementation calendar before assigning a total.

For fiscal years one through ten, separate direct audit costs, remediation investments, technology upgrades, workforce transition, recoveries, validated procurement savings, service improvements and any tax effects. A consolidation that reduces overlapping leases but raises travel costs or delays benefits may save less than advertised. The relevant number is verified net savings after transition and sustained operating costs, not a headline formed by adding gross agency budgets together.

GAO's reported potential financial benefits offer an evidence-based shortlist for investigation, but cannot be booked in advance as AP revenue. (Source 08) A first-year net cost and ten-year net position remain undetermined until the audit scope, workforce, technology and legislative changes are defined. Fiscal restraint includes resisting the temptation to spend hypothetical savings before finding them.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

A sweeping audit can become a pretext for political retaliation, selective enforcement, public exposure of private information or indiscriminate staffing cuts. Agencies may spend so much time reporting that essential services deteriorate. Outsourced auditors can bring conflicts of interest; central databases can introduce cybersecurity and surveillance risks. These outcomes would defeat the stated purpose.

There is also a legitimate tension between uniform national standards and specialized missions. Veterans' hospitals, aviation safety, federal science, Tribal trust obligations and criminal investigations require different measures of success. Comparable reporting is useful; forcing every function into one arbitrary productivity score is not.

Some will argue that existing inspectors general, congressional committees, GAO, financial audits and agency reviews already make another whole-of-government initiative redundant. That objection deserves a serious answer: AP should first use existing findings, close known information gaps, fund compliance and consolidate reporting before creating an additional bureaucracy to audit the bureaucracy that audits the bureaucracy. At some point, even the clipboard needs an audit.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Track the percentage of agencies and programs with verified inventories, audit opinions and timely financial statements; repeat material weaknesses; corrective actions closed; duplicate functions resolved; contracts and assets reconciled; verified net savings; cybersecurity incidents; benefit processing delays; public-service quality; whistleblower outcomes; and findings of rights violations. Report both gains and harms, with independent validation.

The governing question is not whether government is big or small enough to fit into somebody's ideology. It is whether every function has a lawful purpose, every public dollar can be explained, and every person depending on a service can see whether it works. The people own the government. The people deserve its books.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency / Oversight.gov — Inspectors General, duties and independence under the Inspector General Act of 1978. https://www.oversight.gov/about/inspectors-general

02 · Congressional Research Service — Defense Primer: FY2025 Department of Defense Audit Results, updated April 28, 2026; Chief Financial Officers Act background. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF12627.html

03 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO-25-107721, May 15, 2025. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107721

04 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Federal Programs: OMB Needs to Continue Developing a Complete and Useful Inventory, GAO-26-107551, March 5, 2026. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107551

05 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Financial Audit: FY2025 and FY2024 Consolidated Financial Statements of the U.S. Government, GAO-26-108073, March 19, 2026. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108073

06 · Department of Defense Office of Inspector General — Independent Auditor's Reports on the DoD FY2025 Financial Statements, December 18, 2025. https://www.dodig.mil/Reports/Audits-and-Evaluations/Article/4365178/independent-auditors-reports-on-the-dod-fy-2025-financial-statements/

07 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More, GAO-25-107743, February 25, 2025. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107743

08 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — 2026 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap, and Fragmentation, GAO-26-108505, May 12, 2026. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108505

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