The Politics of Auditing

Abstract

The auditor is a little-known actor with great importance in the American political system. To journalists and political scientists—and thus to much of the population—the auditor arouses far less interest than members of the legislature, heads of administrative agencies, the chief executive and his staff, candidates for public office, and functionaries of the major political parties. Only a small handfull of political science scholarship or auditing has appeared since 1939.¹ Among the great functions in the political process, auditing is the least well-known among the scholars who specialize in government and politics. Senator William Proxmire has written about the principal audit unit of the United States government: ‘Few people have heard of the General Accounting Office. Few know what it does. Fewer still know that it is an arm of the United States Congress.’²