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Institutional anemia cripples congressional oversight
Danielle Brian is celebrating her 20th year at the Project on Government Oversight this week.
POGO is one of Washington's most productive and respected good-government groups, and Brian, who has been its executive director since 1993, can look back and take pride in a number of victories for accountability in areas such as cutting wasteful defense contracts, exposing oil and gas industry fraud, and increasing nuclear security.
But one thing she's not celebrating is the pathetic state of congressional oversight
"I've been doing this for 20 years, and it's never been worse," she says. "I know that's actually shocking for progressives to hear because their people are in power and they thought that was going to make all the difference."
And yet oversight is even more anemic now than when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, she says.
It's not so much a question of partisanship, she says, it's a matter of Congress having forgotten its role.