National Review
Rand Paul describes $ 54 billion in ‘strange’ government waste in Festivus’ annual report
Senator Rand Paul released his annual report on Tuesday outlining billions of dollars in “truly bizarre” government waste. This year’s “Festivus” waste report, a reference to the fictional Seinfeld “complaint disclosure” documented nearly $ 54,746,525,000 in “totally wasted” money by the government. Remember this the next time you say no there is ‘nothing to cut’, “wrote the Kentucky Republican on Wednesday in a Twitter topic highlighting parts of the report. Examples of Paul’s waste were several health studies, including more than $ 36 million spent studying why stress makes hair gray, more than $ 1 million spent studying whether people are going to eat accumulating insects and more of $ 3 million spent interviewing san franciscans about using edible cannabis. As for taxpayer money spent to help other countries, $ 8.62 billion was spent in Afghanistan on efforts to combat drug trafficking, more than $ 37 million was spent helping to deal with evasive Filipino youths and much more $ 3 million they were spent sending Russians to American community colleges for a “gap year”. Among the funds spent on the environment, energy and scientific research, more than US $ 1 million was spent walking with lizards on a treadmill, almost US $ 200,000 was spent studying how people cooperate while playing e-sport video games and more than US $ 2 million in the development of a wearable headset to track eating behaviors. The military had a number of particularly high expenses this year that Paul listed as waste, including the reuse of $ 1 billion in coronavirus response funds for other acquisitions, more than $ 715 million in lost equipment for Syrians fighting ISIS , and $ 174 million in drones that were lost in Afghanistan. Other expenses that raised eyebrows included more than $ 4 million spent spraying lynx urine on alcoholic rats, more than $ 10 million spent on coronavirus test tubes that turned out to be used soda bottles and nearly $ 6 million spent on construction of three bicycle storage facilities at Washington, DC metro stations. In 2020, “Congress passed like never before, ostensibly without care,” says the report. “Part of that is traceable to COVID-related spending, but much of it was not.”