GAO - Government Accountability Office

09/18/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/18/2025 06:12

Auditing a Crisis—How GAO Helps Improve the Federal Response Now and in the FutureImage

Whether it's an economic, public health, or natural disaster-when crises occur, many Americans look to the federal government for assistance. It's important to respond quickly and ensure a high-quality response. Part of that is making sure that funding and resources go where they are needed most. To make sure that happens, Congress turns to GAO time and again.

Think of hurricanes and wildfires, when federal disaster declarations make federal money and workers available to save lives and rebuild homes and businesses. Who checks whether these responses actually helped, and if money is going to intended recipients? GAO does.

Today's WatchBlog post looks at GAO's vital role in supporting Congress during times of crisis and the challenges with auditing a federal response in real time.

How does GAO audit a crisis?

"Real-time auditing" means auditing while or shortly after federal action is taken or money is spent. This is different from other GAO work, which looks at how money was spent last year, or how programs have operated-past tense. But when you audit a crisis, you must shift from a retrospective oversight role to one that looks for insights and foresights-anticipating the problems that a response may face.

Why not wait until the dust settles? By then, it will be too late to improve the government's response to the current crisis.

GAO is uniquely positioned to do real-time auditing at a level and quality that no other agency or think tank can. We have decades of work and experience in a broad range of disasters and other crises that make us the best at doing on-the-ground, real-time auditing.

Let's look at some examples.

Auditing natural disasters

During the last decade, the federal government spent nearly a half-trillion dollars on natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. These events are becoming more frequent and severe, putting more lives at risk and potentially costing billions more in taxpayer dollars.

While every disaster is different, understanding what the government is doing or not doing well in responding to each one can help make the next response better.

How does GAO help improve the federal response? We show up. Our auditors are on the ground interviewing federal, state, and local officials and observing the federal response in real time. We also meet with survivors. We want to know: What challenges did the government face in getting resources to communities? What challenges did communities face when trying to access resources? What could be done differently to address those challenges?

Then we report out and make recommendations to help make things better.

For example, we recommended ways to make it easier for people to apply for disaster relief funding. This and other changes made in March 2024 will simplify the process and save the government and disaster survivors $38 million over the next 5 years, including by reducing the costs of completing and reviewing applications.

GAO's Chris Currie, an expert on federal disaster assistance, discusses more of our recent work, and its importance, in the video below.

How GAO does it-especially when it's tough. Sometimes, just knowing GAO is on its way is enough for federal agencies to sit up straighter and make needed changes. But often, the people best positioned to answer our questions are busy responding to the crisis. Think of FEMA responders who are working quickly to connect families and communities with resources and help. To overcome this obstacle:

  • We make time for them. GAO staff go out in the field and work closely with agencies, embedding when needed, to get answers. We make ourselves available to them on their schedules-whether it be at the end of a shift, during a break, on a weekend, or late at night.
  • They make time for us. Our unique authority as an agency, our experience with these kinds of real-time audits, and our reputation of producing impactful results means agency officials, as well as state, local, and community leaders, make time for us. They want to talk to us and share their stories and concerns.

Auditing an economic crisis

Our understanding of how to audit a natural disaster in some ways informed our work during economic crises. But a key difference was the scale. Natural disasters are mostly localized or even regionalized events. The Great Recession wasn't just national-it was global.

The Great Recession began in 2007 when the housing bubble burst and was the worst economic downturn in the U.S. since the Great Depression.

In response, Congress provided $700 billion through the Troubled Asset Relief Program to prop up the financial system. Congress directed GAO to do fast-paced bimonthly audits of the Department of the Treasury's implementation and oversight of the program. We were auditing at Treasury the first day the funds became available. We also testified before the House and Senate in early December 2008 on the use of TARP funds for automakers.

GAO's work on the Great Recession included 70 recommendations for Treasury to improve its response. Congress and Treasury implemented nearly all our recommendations, such as adding safeguards around the assistance provided to automakers. The lifetime cost of the program was ultimately $31.1 billion, significantly less than originally anticipated.

How did auditing the Great Recession inform GAO's other work? The bimonthly reporting requirements on this nationwide issue prompted us to adapt our normal processes to make them more agile and responsive. Auditing the Great Recession showed us the benefits of getting in quickly and making frequent recommendations while a situation unfolds.

Auditing COVID-19

When COVID-19 hit, we had already published a breadth of work about the federal government's response to other public health emergencies, including prior epidemics like H1N1. Many of the same challenges were seen during COVID-19. But as a result of our work, we were able to give agencies real-time advice on how to overcome them.

As a crisis evolves, so does the federal government's response. For example, as the Small Business Administration stood up different COVID-19 programs to help small businesses, we made real-time recommendations on how to safeguard federal dollars. Implementing our recommendations led to about $15 billion in savings.

GAO is ready to respond

For GAO, helping Congress oversee federal responses to emergencies is all in a day's work. We've discussed more recent examples, but GAO has been auditing crises for decades. We looked into the Chrysler bailout in 1980. We were also there, providing important analysis and recommendations to Congress and agencies during the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After 9/11, we worked on improving the federal effort to secure the aviation system.

Through the years, we have flexed and strengthened our real-time auditing muscles. While we can hope there will be no future emergencies, we know there will be. And we'll be ready to help Congress and agencies respond.

  • GAO's fact-based, nonpartisan information helps Congress and federal agencies improve government. The WatchBlog lets us contextualize GAO's work a little more for the public. Check out more of our posts at GAO.gov/blog.
  • Got a comment, question? Email us at [email protected].
GAO - Government Accountability Office published this content on September 18, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on September 18, 2025 at 12:13 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]