Right Now
Today, Dr. Coburn filed an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act (S. 1925) that would require the Department of Justice to consolidate its more than 250 duplicative government programs identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) with savings being divided between reducing the deficit and resolving the backlog of DNA testing for rapes, kidnappings, homicides, and other criminal cases.
This amendment will provide at least $600 million in additional funds to support efforts to use DNA to solve crimes.
This amendment would require the Department of Justice to—
• Identify every program its administers;
• Consolidate unnecessary duplication; and
• Apply savings towards resolving rape cases and reducing the deficit.
For text of the amendment, click here. For additional backround, click here. This amendment has already gained support from the organization, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC).
According to GAO, since 2005, Congress has spent $30 billion in overlapping Department of Justice grants for crime prevention police and victims services from more than 250 DOJ grant programs, and $3.9 billion in grants just in 2010. The chart below illustrates all of the overlapping grants and duplicative programs at the Department of Justice:
(View a larger size of the chart by clicking here)
