Cite as: 513 U. S. 374 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
1940, § 5, 54 Stat. 573-574. The RFC proceeded to do so with gusto, incorporating on its own the Defense Plant Corporation, the Defense Supplies Corporation, the Metals Reserve Company (which itself created several subsidiaries), the Petroleum Reserves Corporation, the Rubber Development Corporation, and the War Damage Corporation, among others. See GAO Corporation Manual 32, 38, 169, 182, 219, 279. Other corporations were formed, sometimes under state law, without even the general congressional authorization granted the RFC. For example, the Defense Homes Corporation was organized under Maryland law by the Secretary of the Treasury, using emergency funds allocated to the President, id., at 28 ("It is not clear what, if any, specific Federal statutory authority was relied upon for the creation of the Defense Homes Corporation"); and the Tennessee Valley Associated Cooperatives, Inc., was chartered under Tennessee law by the TVA, id., at 244 ("There has been found no Federal statute specifically authorizing the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority to organize a corporation"). By 1945, the General Accounting Office's Reference Manual of Government Corporations listed 58 government corporations, with total assets (in 1945 dollars) of $29.6 billion. See id., at iii, v-vi.
By the end of World War II, Government-created and -controlled corporations had gotten out of hand, in both their number and their lack of accountability. Congress moved to reestablish order in the Government Corporation Control Act (GCCA), 59 Stat. 597, as amended, 31 U. S. C. § 9101 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. V). See Pritchett, The Government Corporation Control Act of 1945, 40 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 495 (1946). The GCCA required that specified corporations, both wholly owned and partially owned by the Government, be audited by the Comptroller General. See 59 Stat. 599, 600. Additionally, the wholly owned corporations were required, for the first time, to submit budgets which would be included in the budget submitted annually to Congress by
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