Perspectives: Doing what’s right

Society expects its public officials, lawyers, CPAs, and other professionals to be models of good conduct. Clearly, in recent years, some of these individuals haven’t lived up to these expectations. Many of them have paid a heavy personal price, and the reputations of their organizations, institutions, and professions have been tainted.

David M. Walker, US Comptroller General, Washington, DC

My agency, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), takes seriously its responsibility to lead by example both inside and outside of government. After all, you can’t put a price on the GAO brand name, and we work hard every day, as we have for the last 85 years, to protect and enhance our reputation for honesty and independence.

GAO’s Office of General Counsel plays an important role in that effort. Our attorneys weigh in on everything from bid protest decisions, to evaluations of federal programs and policies, to the legality and even the constitutionality of various agency actions. But our attorneys do far more than say “yea” or “nay.” They play a key role in helping us to maximize value, manage risk, and ensure that GAO adheres to the highest ethical standards.

The philosopher and missionary Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” I’m a big believer in the principle of “leading by example.” In my view, leadership provides both an opportunity and an obligation to help show others the way forward and demonstrate how things can and should be done.

Whether in government or private industry, those at the top must set the professional and ethical tone for the rest of their organization. After all, leaders who are credible and trusted are more likely to motivate and inspire others.

Successful leaders also take seriously their stewardship responsibilities, not just to their organizations and its stakeholders, but to society as a whole and to future generations. In my view, every leader should try to leave his or her organization not just better off than when they came, but better positioned for the future. This is equally true for a federal agency, a major corporation, or a nonprofit venture.

GAO’s core values

Soon after I came to GAO in 1998, the agency officially adopted a set of three core values: accountability, integrity, and reliability. These core values supplement the requirements established by law and by professional standards, such as the Code of Professional Responsibility for our lawyers and Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards for our auditors and analysts. If you come to Washington, DC, you can see these core values over the entrance to GAO’s headquarters. They appear on the cover of every blue-book report we issue. More importantly, they are in the hearts and minds of every GAO employee.

• Accountability describes what GAO does. Simply put, we help to ensure the accountability of executive branch programs and agencies to Congress and the American people.

• Integrity describes the character of GAO’s people. On every assignment, GAO employees are required to be professional, objective, fact-based, non-partisan, non-ideological, fair, and balanced. If fact, they have to certify to this on every job.

• Reliability refers to the quality of GAO’s work. Reliability is why Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle regularly use GAO reports and other products as the basis for hearings, press conferences, floor debates, and legislation. Anyone who reads a GAO study can and should have confidence in the facts and analysis it contains. In fact, two recent peer reviews have cited GAO for its outstanding work and quality assurance procedures.

These core values guide everything we do. For example, they help guide our dealings with our major client - the Congress of the United States. It’s important that we deal fairly and consistently with every member of Congress who requests a GAO study.

Frankly, we don’t accept every job we’re asked to do. Some requests are beyond GAO’s scope of authority, some requests are clearly politically motivated, and some requests would have us look only at one side of an issue. With core values, we can sort through issues like these quickly and equitably.

We have only to look to recent accountability failures in the private sector to see what happens when individuals lack or stray from a set of core values. At Enron, WorldCom, and other companies, the unethical behavior of sometimes just a few corporate executives, auditors, and other professionals led to bankruptcies and restatements that have harmed countless shareholders, employees, and retirees. Many innocent parties lost their investments, their jobs, and their pensions. And some guilty parties lost their reputations and even their freedom.

Not surprisingly, public confidence in the integrity of the corporate financial reporting process took a big hit. One of the largest and most respected accounting firms in the world, one where I was a partner for almost a decade, paid the ultimate price. In less than two years, Arthur Andersen went from the CPA profession’s “global gold standard” to gone. Why? Because a few professionals didn’t properly exercise their professional responsibilities, Andersen’s leaders didn’t take the situation seriously enough, and the Justice Department then indicted the firm rather than just the responsible individuals.

Arthur Andersen was in the trust business. And once this trust was lost, it was almost impossible for the firm to recover. Government agencies, universities, law firms, and charities need to remember that they are also in the trust business. It can take years to earn a solid reputation and a strong degree of trust, but a reputation can be lost almost overnight if people stray from the qualities that made them and their organization great.

As many people have learned the hard way, it’s not always enough just to do what is “legal.” Don’t misunderstand me. Since the founding of our republic 217 years ago, we’ve been a nation based on the rule of law. It is one of our great strengths as a country and something we advocate to other nations. Over the years, those laws have helped to ensure that our government has remained accountable to the American people and true to the vision of our Founding Fathers.

But I think all of us have a right to expect more from people in positions of power, particularly high-ranking public officials. I firmly believe that leaders in all sectors of society should not just do what’s legal; they should also strive to do what’s right.

These individuals should try to meet a higher set of moral and ethical standards. This isn’t rocket science. In any situation, simply ask yourself how you’d like to be treated by others.

Life is full of difficult decisions, and the right choice isn’t always easy or popular. But in my experience, principled choices based on solid facts and sound analyses are the surest way to a good reputation. And in the end, all any of us is left with is our reputation.

Government accountability

Discussions about accountability in government all too often focus on infuriating cases of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. We’ve all read news accounts of federal workers who abuse their government credit cards or contractors who over-bill the government. It’s also become obvious that the government has been issuing far too many contracts and assistance payments for Hurricane Katrina relief that just don’t pass the “straight-face” test.

I want to be clear here. We should have zero tolerance for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in federal programs. But candidly, we could cut out every dollar of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government and we’d still face serious fiscal and other accountability challenges.

For example:

• Where’s the accountability for spending increases and tax cuts that are unaffordable and unsustainable over time?
• Where’s the accountability for government programs and tax preferences that aren’t getting real results?
• Where’s the accountability for federal programs and policies that are rooted in the past and no longer meet the needs of the American people?
• Where’s the accountability for congressional “pet” projects, better known as earmarks, at a time of huge budget deficits?

Is it any wonder that the government’s accountability challenges have gone from millions to billions to trillions of dollars?

At the same time, it’s all too easy to lose sight of the biggest accountability problem in government today. And that’s the continuing unwillingness of policymakers to face the facts, to take a long-term perspective, and to prepare our country for the large, known, and growing challenges that lie ahead.

Today, our world is vastly different from what it was 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. We face serious long-term challenges in several areas, some of them unprecedented in their size, scope, complexity, and potential impact. Unfortunately, several of these issues are getting too little attention, provoking too little concern, and prompting too little action.

At the top of that list are demographics. In the very near future, our aging population will begin to put enormous strains on our nation’s pension and health care systems. Other emerging trends that warrant close scrutiny are globalization, new security threats, rapidly evolving technology, and a range of quality-of-life concerns affecting everything from education and health care to energy and the environment.

More urgently, America now faces four serious interrelated deficits - a budget deficit, a balance-of-payments deficit, a savings deficit, and a leadership deficit. In particular, our growing fiscal imbalance threatens ur future economic growth, our future standard of living, and even our future national security. In recent years, America has been heading in the wrong direction on all four deficits. We have a window of opportunity to turn things around, but we need to act and act soon because the miracle of compounding is working against us.

Government transformation

If our nation is to meet the challenges I’ve just mentioned, government transformation is essential. Way too much of government is on autopilot and based on social, economic, national security, and other conditions that existed when Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy were in the White House.

Nothing less than a top-to-bottom review of all major federal programs and policies is needed to determine if they are meeting their objectives. This will also help free up resources for other needs. Congress and the President need to decide which programs and policies remain priorities, which should be overhauled, and which have simply outlived their usefulness.

To help in this effort, GAO has published an unprecedented report that asks a series of probing questions about current mandatory and discretionary spending and tax policies.

Our report is called “21st Century Challenges: Reexamining the Base of the Federal Government,” and it’s free on our website at www.gao.gov.

An advocate of good government

Any government that values ethics and integrity needs to have a system of checks and balances. On the federal level, GAO plays an important oversight role. By providing Congress with the best available information on government programs and policies, GAO’s actions help to ensure that these programs and the officials running them comply with the law and that every government official, no matter who they are, must answer to the American people.

We at GAO have never wavered in our belief that the public deserves to be fully informed about all aspects of major government policies, programs, and operations. That’s why we perform a range of oversight, insight, and foresight work, almost all of which is available to the public and on our website.

After all, ours is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Sometimes, I think some folks forget the fact that the Constitution begins with the words, “We the people.” In my view, these are the three most powerful words in that great document.

Commitment to transparency

Let me give you two recent examples of GAO’s continuing commitment to transparency and accountability in government. First, as many of you probably know, back in 2002 we sued the vice president over access to the records of his energy task force. This task force was created to develop federal policies on the exploration, production, and distribution of various sources of energy.

This task force was no superficial undertaking. In fact, the panel’s final report contained more than 1,000 recommendations for executive action or new legislation, including a provision that allows the Interior Department to waive all or part of the royalties due the taxpayers from energy exploration and production on federal lands.

On behalf of Congress, GAO tried to find out who attended the task force meetings, what topics they discussed, and how much it cost American taxpayers. GAO made exhaustive efforts to reach an accommodation with the administration on this information, and we ended up suing as a last resort. Unfortunately, the district court ruled against GAO on technical grounds, and for various reasons, including the fact that the decision was not a binding precedent and other parties were suing for the same information, we decided not to appeal.

Since then, GAO has kept a close eye on access-to-records issues and their impact on our ability to do our work. So far, we haven’t needed to issue another demand letter since that suit was filed. We hope we’re never put into the position of having to go to court again. But candidly, if we’re stonewalled in our attempts to get information that Congress legitimately needs to carry out its oversight and other constitutional duties, GAO is fully prepared to issue another demand letter and back it up with legal action.

As comptroller general of the United States, I take seriously my responsibility to speak out on a range of complex and sometimes controversial issues. It’s not always an easy job, and sometimes people don’t like what we have to say. But as Harry Truman once said about his “Give ‘Em Hell Harry” nickname, “I never give anybody hell. I just tell them the truth and they think it’s hell.” I can assure you that GAO and I will continue to speak truth to power and tell it like it is.OGFJ

“One of the largest and most respected accounting firms in the world, one where I was a partner for almost a decade, paid the ultimate price. In less than two years, Arthur Andersen went from the CPA profession’s ‘global gold standard’ to gone. Why? Because a few professionals didn’t properly exercise their professional responsibilities, Andersen’s leaders didn’t take the situation seriously enough, and the Justice Department then indicted the firm rather than just the responsible individuals.” >- David M. Walker, US comptroller general

Editor’s Note: David Walker has served as comptroller general of the United States since 1998. He heads the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), a legislative branch agency founded in 1921. A certified public accountant, he is a former partner with Arthur Andersen LLP, a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare, and an assistant secretary of labor. These remarks are excerpted from his Mar. 17 speech at the University of Virginia Law School.