Government Accountability Office
The legislative branch audit agency that examines federal programmes and spending on behalf of Congress.
The Government Accountability Office works for Congress rather than for the executive branch, which is the structural fact that distinguishes it from an agency's own inspector general. It audits programmes, evaluates whether they achieve what statute intended, and issues legal opinions on questions such as whether funds were spent consistently with their appropriations.
Its reports follow a consistent and unusually legible structure: what was examined, what was found, what is recommended, and the agency's written response. Because recommendations are tracked over time, the office also publishes which of them remain unimplemented years later, which is often a more revealing document than any individual report.
Two recurring outputs matter for coverage. Its bid protest decisions resolve challenges to federal contract awards and can force an agency to redo a procurement, and its opinions on impoundment determine whether a withholding of funds required a rescission. Everything it publishes is a work of the United States Government and therefore freely quotable.
What the federal government did, once a day.
One email each weekday: the rules, filings, votes and Fed decisions that actually changed something, each one linked to the document it came from.