Article I, section 9 of the
United States Constitution provides that Initially, the House appointed
special committees to monitor the use of public money. In 1802, the
Committee of Ways and Means was empowered to review expenditures and to report such provisions and arrangements "as may be necessary to add to the economy of the departments, and the accountability of their officers." On February 26, 1814, Congress divided the duties of the Committee of Ways and Means and transferred that part relating to the examination of past expenditures to a standing
Committee on Public Expenditures. In 1816, the House initiated an organizational change that provided a means of continuously and consistently following the operations of the various
Departments in the
Executive branch and scrutinizing their expenditures. On February 28, 1816,
Henry St. George Tucker of Virginia proposed the appointment of six standing committees to examine the accounts and expenditures of the
State,
Treasury,
War,
Navy,
Post Office Departments and those related to the construction and maintenance of public buildings. The committees were created on March 30, 1816, with
Stevenson Archer (Maryland),
Wilson Lumpkin (Georgia), and
Benjamin Huger (South Carolina) as the first members of the Committee on Expenditures in the Navy Department. In 1927 it was consolidated with ten other Committees on Expenditures to form the
United States House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments. The functions of the committee are now part of the
United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ==Notes==