Protecting Consumers and Their Money
When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 changed the U.S. financial regulatory structure, Tarek Mahmassani, MPP’01, a senior analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), was tasked with ensuring the act actually protects consumers and improves financial stability.
As a member of the Financial Markets and Community Investment Team, Mahmassani leads reviews of federally funded programs in his team’s sectors, analyzing programs and policies related to them, and assessing their overall impact. His work with GAO includes contributions to overseeing the longitudinal analysis of funds distributed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—colloquially known as “the stimulus package”—as well as an examination of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s adaptive housing program, which allows wounded service members and veterans to adapt a home they are temporarily living in that is owned by a family member.
“The work I do directly contributes to better management and more effective use of the federally funded programs,” he says. “The impact is often large given the size of the programs and issues we cover. It is rewarding to know that each project I work on aims to make our government more efficient and accountable.”
--Helen Behnke-Hanson and David Wang
