34 To the extent that the justices’ reluctance to embrace a code of ethics may be predicated on the infeasibility of enforcing rules against one another, they conflate the enforceability of rules with the value of having rules. [...] To address potential ethics violations, legislation should require the Office of Special Counsel to investigate alleged violations of ethics rules at the request of the director of the Office of Government Ethics. [...] In a recent example, the COVID assistance programs of the last few years have distributed hundreds of trillions of dollars — and experienced higher than usual levels of fraud and waste, evidence of which continues to be uncovered.39 While Congress made efforts to attach to the funds the same best practice recipient reporting requirements that successfully mitigated waste, fraud, and abuse of Ameri. [...] Congress has started to address this problem by requiring the Office of Management and Budget to publicly post these apportionment decisions.47 In addition to issues with the Office of Management and Budget and the apportionment process, there are weaknesses and gaps in the two key budget and appropriations laws, the Antideficiency Act and the Impoundment Control Act.48 These flaws create addition. [...] The Office of Management and Budget has the authority under existing spending transparency statutes — the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, and the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act — to make changes to the reporting on federal awards that ensure proper oversight.
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- 108
- Published in
- United States of America
