Complete Government Waste

Every year a Republican in the Senate creates a list of federally funded projects that are just plain ridiculous and a waste of federal tax dollars.  They chronical these projects in a document titled Wastebook, and now that Senator Tom Coburn has retired Senator Jeff Flake (R. Ariz) has taken up his cause.

There is an article in The Washington Free Beacon which has pointed out a couple of federally funded projects that would appear to most people to be a complete waste of our federal tax dollars.

Wastebook 2015 points out some of the more ridiculous waste of our tax dollars, such as:

• Monkeys running in hamster balls on a treadmill
• Zombies in the White House
• Sheep in microgravity
• Cartooning in India
• A life-size Pac-Man game
• Jazz lessons for robots
• A cloud city on Venus!

Remember when Democrat Congress women Nancy Pelosi said “The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that”.  Really Nancy!

According to the article, in which they found the numbers in the Wastebook 2015 document, “The monkey study cost taxpayers $1 million from the National Institutes of Health, an agency often cited for its wasteful spending. The project trained twelve marmoset monkeys in how to run on a treadmill, which caused some unfortunate animals to vomit and “defecate in their exercise ball.”

They went on to inform us on other examples including:

• $50,000 from the State Department for a Do-It-Yourself festival in Moscow

• $853,000 from the National Science Foundation for wine classes for minors

• $68,129 in food aid from the Department of Agriculture that was spent on a craft beer, wine, and spirits training program in Vietnam

• A $1.3 million National Science Foundation study tried to figure out if a koozie does in fact keep a beer cold (it does)

• $780,000 National Institute of Drug Abuse study attempted to determine if college students can get addicted to pizza. The results were inconclusive

• The Department of Transportation spent $77,000 on anti-drunk driving PSAs where fake drunk men criticize women’s looks

• $5 million to throw “commune” dance parties for hipsters to encourage them to quit smoking

• $707,000 study started a “shrimp fight club” that included 34 bouts with mantis shrimp

• $79,000 was spent on a “sing along brunch party” with 80 people singing tunes from Annie to promote a farmer’s market

It goes on and on and on, get the point.

So next time you hear we need to raise taxes to fund another project remember these and tell your federally elected officials to look and the Wastebook 2015 edition and explain to us why there are no more areas in which we can cut.

Let’s discuss today on my program, The Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.