A Call for Stewardship

This was a speech given by the Comptroller General before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on December 17, 2007. The Treasury Department released the 2007 Financial Report of the United States Government. Candidly, if the federal government were a private corporation and the same report came out this morning, our stock would be dropping and there would be talk about whether the company's management and directors needed a major shake-up. If you look at today's report, you'll see that for the 11th straight year GAO was unable to express an opinion on the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. Government, primarily due to financial management problems within the Department of Defense. GAO also noted a number of very serious internal control weaknesses. At the same time, there is some good news in connection with this year's audit. Today's annual report includes the first GAO opinion on a statement within the federal government's consolidated financial statements. Specifically, GAO expressed an unqualified opinion on the Statement of Social Insurance. This statement includes the largest numbers in the federal government's financial statements. To put things in perspective, we're talking numbers in the tens of trillions of dollars in current dollar terms. One of the reasons we could issue an unqualified opinion is because the Department of Defense has nothing to do to with the Statement of Social Insurance! When it comes to America's financial situation, are we on the right course? The answer is "yes" and "no."