WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. Government Accountability Office Tuesday released its 2012 Annual Report indicating duplicate programs cost the government tens of billions of dollars.
The report found 51 areas where programs "may be able to achieve greater efficiencies or become more effective in providing government services," the GAO said.
"We have found that agencies can often realize a range of benefits, such as improved customer service, decreased administrative burdens, and cost savings from addressing the issues we raise in this report," the GAO said in the report, which describes 32 areas in which "duplication, overlap, or fragmentation among federal government programs" was found.
The study is the second annual survey of mismanagement and overlap in the federal government called for last year by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
Coburn is expected to testify Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its chairman, Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
"Eliminating duplicative spending should be the easy part," but "Congress has done almost nothing to address problem areas GAO has already identified," Coburn said earlier.
"I have always said that the enemy isn't the Democrats; the enemy isn't the Republicans -- it's the bureaucracy," Issa has said.