Why It Matters

The Senate voted 89-4 on Monday, Aug. 3, to advance a bipartisan continuing resolution that would fund the government, including the legislative branch, at current fiscal 2026 levels through Friday, Dec. 11. The move effectively pauses a House-passed plan to cut the Government Accountability Office (GAO), since agencies without an enacted full-year bill would keep their existing funding under the stopgap rather than face the cuts the House committee approved.

The House Appropriations Committee approved that underlying bill on a party-line vote of 34-28 on May 20. It would cut GAO funding to $611.9 million, a reduction of $248 million, or 28.9 percent, from the agency's fiscal 2027 request, and would bar GAO from suing the executive branch under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 unless Congress separately authorizes such action by concurrent resolution. The bill has not reached the House floor, and the Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to mark up its own version.

The cut would force GAO to eliminate roughly 1,000 employees, according to a Federal News Network estimate. Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) offered an amendment during the May markup to strike the litigation restriction, but it failed on a vote of 28-34.

The Big Picture

The legislative branch's fiscal 2027 budget request, submitted in early April, totaled $8.512 billion, a 17.3 percent increase over the fiscal 2026 enacted level. GAO itself had requested $860 million, a 5.9 percent increase. Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown told the Senate subcommittee at an April 15 hearing that even under that request, GAO's workforce would still fall to about 3,100 people, more than 450 below 2024 levels.

The House-reported bill would provide $5.442 billion for Title I legislative branch operations, a 1.7 percent decrease from the comparable fiscal 2026 enacted level, even as several agencies would see modest increases elsewhere in the bill. Across the legislative branch, the bill would provide roughly $3.07 billion less than agencies had requested for fiscal 2027. Last year, House appropriators proposed an even steeper cut to GAO's budget, but Senate appropriators rejected it and ultimately funded the agency near its existing level in the enacted fiscal 2026 law, a pattern that appears to be repeating.

The Bottom Line

The House-passed cut to GAO and its litigation restriction remain on the table, but Monday's stopgap effectively delays that fight until after the midterm elections. GAO will remain funded at current levels for now, postponing its financial forecast until Congress can reach a full budget agreement this winter.

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