The most important government role you never heard of
Think from KERA
KERA
4.7 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
To root out inefficiency and corruption in government, we turn to inspectors general. Glenn A. Fine served as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense. He’s now a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and has taught at Stanford Law School and he joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what IGs do, why they are vital for a healthy government – and why he says the Supreme Court needs an Inspector General, too. His book is “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When somebody else is spending our money in the form of tax dollars, at the very least, we want to know they're using it wisely, pursuing projects that actually deliver on their promises, avoiding waste, and any hint of corruption. |
| 0:22.7 | But most of us don't have the expertise, the resources, or the time to dig in and hold federal |
| 0:28.1 | agencies accountable. For that, we rely on the Office of the Inspector General. |
| 0:33.5 | From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. |
| 0:39.7 | Inspectors General are installed within many federal agencies to perform ongoing audits and investigations designed to assess efficiency |
| 0:45.4 | and root out any fraud or misuse of government assets. Their reports go to Congress and to the |
| 0:51.1 | head of each agency, but they're independent of the departments they |
| 0:54.9 | scrutinize, which is to say they don't face any pressure not to call attention to problems they |
| 0:59.6 | find, and they are not always popular with the bureaucrats whose work they evaluate. |
| 1:04.7 | What's really surprising is that as critical as inspectors general are to an honest and effective |
| 1:10.2 | government, most Americans don't know |
| 1:12.6 | very much about what they do or how they work. So today, we're going to get into all that. |
| 1:17.1 | And I promise you, this essential but under the radar agency is pretty fascinating to learn about. |
| 1:23.7 | Glenn A. Fine is my guest. He served as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and the acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense. He is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and has taught at Stanford Law School. His book is called Watchdogs, Inspectors General and and the battle for honest and accountable government. |
| 1:45.4 | Glenn, welcome to think. |
| 1:46.7 | Thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:48.6 | So people might not necessarily think about Inspector General work as a passion career path, |
| 1:54.9 | but you actually chose public service over a shot at playing in the NBA. |
| 2:01.1 | Well, it is true. I was a basketball player and I was drafted in the NBA in the 10th round in |
| 2:09.3 | 1979 by the San Antonio Spurs. People don't believe that when they see me. I'm 5'9 inches |
| 2:14.5 | tall. And when I met many admirals and generals in the Pentagon when I was |
| 2:18.9 | the acting inspector general with the department of defense, they were very skeptical that I was |
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