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GAO now Investigating DHS Ammo Purchases (+video)

Photo Credit: US NewsThe Government Accountability Office tells Whispers it is now investigating large ammunition purchases made by the Department of Homeland Security. Chuck Young, a spokesman for GAO, says the investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.”

The congressional investigative agency is jumping into the fray just as legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House to restrict the purchase of ammo by some government agencies (except the Department of Defense). The AMMO Act, introduced Friday, would prevent agencies from buying more ammunition if “stockpiles” are greater than what they were in previous administrations.

Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who introduced the legislation in the Senate, tells Whispers the bill would also require GAO to share the findings of its report on DHS purchases with Congress.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sequestration Solved: New GAO Report Identifies $95 Billion in Overlapping Programs

Photo Credit: AP

Duplicative drug abuse and treatment services are strewn over 76 federal programs. Housing services are spread across 20 different agencies. Renewable energy projects go through 23 federal agencies and 130 sub-agencies.

Even federal catfish inspections are done by three different agencies. These are only a few of 162 examples identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, of fragmented, duplicative federal programs and services.

The 2013 edition of the annual report originally requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, is being released today and it concludes that not only does such managerial dysfunction hobble the federal government, it’s also extraordinarily costly.

“The $95 billion in overlap identified in this report, combined with the $200 billion in overlap identified in GAO’s previous two reports, could easily cover the costs of sequestration,” Coburn told The Washington Examiner.

“Yet, instead of preventing furloughs, reopening air traffic control towers and restoring public access to White House, Congress and the administration continue to defend billions of dollars in duplication programs that are little more than monuments to the good intentions of career politicians in Washington,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

TSA allows dozens of illegal aliens to attend flight school owned by . . . an illegal alien

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved flight training for 25 illegal aliens at a Boston-area flight school that was owned by yet another illegal alien, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The illegal-alien flight-school attendees included eight who had entered the country illegally and 17 who had overstayed their allowed period of admission into the United States, according to an audit by the GAO.

Six of the illegal aliens were actually able to get pilot’s licenses.

Discovery of the trouble at the flight school began when local police–not federal authorities–pulled over the owner of the school on a traffic violation and were able to determine that he was an illegal alien.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Ala.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security, said he found the GAO’s findings “amazing.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: TSA Public Affairs