“With two wars and an economy in shambles, it’s not hard to get the feeling that something’s gone terribly wrong here in Washington…Public opinion pollsters give this president the lowest marks for job performance of any administration since they started polling. How bad is it? The Center for Public Integrity set out to document just how off-track things have gone. We assigned a team of 13 reporters to sift through hundreds of GAO assessments, inspectors general reports, congressional investigations, and news stories. The team also interviewed dozens of experts and sent e-mails to nearly 5,000 federal employees to solicit nominations for this project. The results surprised even us.

From 250 suggested failures, our editors narrowed the list to half, focusing on those that attracted bipartisan criticism and had major impacts on the lives of ordinary Americans. We’re calling this our Broken Government project, and it reveals an extraordinary record of failure: eight years of poor oversight, lack of accountability, and a government based on ideology not competence.”