In a recently released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined ten years of supplemental spending (FY 1997-FY 2006) and found not only a five-fold increase in the amount of expenditures funded through the supplemental process, but also that procedures that enable legislative deliberation are bypassed when Congress funds government operations through supplemental spending. Supplemental spending has become an alternative funding process, parallel to the normal annual appropriations process. This allows certain expenditures to elide close congressional and public scrutiny and allows Congress to escape debate over federal funding priorities.

In FY 2007, the federal government paid contractors about $420 billion to provide thousands of goods and services, but it had little insight into whether those companies were delinquent in paying their federal taxes, had broken contracting rules or laws, or if those firms paid top-level executives exorbitant levels of compensation. However, if several proposed bills become law, these obstacles to oversight and transparency will be greatly reduced. H.R.s 3033, 3928, and 4881 were approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the week of March 10, while H.R. 5602 and a companion Senate bill were introduced the same week.