Alert! The Government Accountability Office – the nonpartisan watchdog arm of Congress – has released its “High Risk” report. The report comes out every other year (at the beginning of each new Congress) and is meant to serve as a menu for policymaker oversight. An area is considered “high risk” because of “greater vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement or the need for transformation to address economy, efficiency, or effectiveness challenges.”

The GAO concentrates on high level issues that are particularly problematic and then track the issues over time. So while it has 32 areas of concentration, only two are new to the 2015 report (“Managing Risks and Improving Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care” and “Improving the Management of Information Technology (IT) Acquisitions and Operations”). They note “Solid, steady progress has been made in the majority of the high-risk areas.” But we’ll note, none of the areas listed in the 2013 report are gone.

Not surprisingly, the government’s largest entity in the discretionary budget continues to lead the pack. Of the 32 high risk areas, seven are within the Department of Defense. Most of these are perennials, like, DOD Financial Management, DOD Weapon Systems Acquisition (exhibit A: F-35), and DOD Contract Management (although they note that it is improving, we’ll see about that).

Others are obvious, like Medicare, which has been on the list since 1990. Its problems are both short-term and especially long-term as the baby boom generation moves into the program. Unfortunately, this is an area that has become politicized, and there has been little political courage to tackle the issues the GAO has raised.

And there are many favorites of ours. From our inception twenty years ago we have had concerns about how the federal oil and gas resources are managed (GAO didn’t get around to putting it on the list until 2011). GAO points to improvements in recent years, particularly since the Mineral Management Service was restructured into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue. But it also notes shortcomings in areas such as revenue collection and personnel. We certainly pointed out in our report on methane royalties (or lack thereof) that more needs to be done.

Another was high risk area is “Funding the Nation’s Surface Transportation System.” This is hardly surprising considering the trust fund has been underwater and Congress has been pilfering general revenue to keep spending levels up. As the GAO notes, the issue is about Congressional will to act. And recent proposals are not encouraging. The answer is not to raid the general treasury (again) or use gimmicks like tapping revenues from encouraging companies to repatriate profits earned overseas with lower tax rates. Instead, Congress needs to roll up its sleeves and come up with legitimate, sustainable user fees.

Another area that shouldn’t surprise you considering how much we’ve written about it: the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). While the GAO points to some improvements in how the Federal Emergency Management Agency implements NFIP, the reality is that the program is “high risk” because of its inherent subsidies. And it’ll remain high risk until lawmakers are willing to tackle them. At least the program paid back $1 billion of its $24 billion debt to the Treasury last year.

There are other programs like the troubled weather satellite acquisition and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, but you get the point. We hope this doesn’t become just another report collecting electronic dust on the GAO web site. It’s up to Congress to review the report, stop political finger-pointing, and start making the changes in law necessary to reform these programs. And it’s up to the agencies to do their part to reduce the risk to taxpayers.