Coburn’s Wastebook highlights $25 billion in wasteful spending
Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) released
his final Wastebook on Wednesday, and it did not disappoint.
Dr. Coburn, who is retiring after this
term, chronicled $25 billion spent on 100 “silly, unnecessary, and low priority
projects,” this year. The report touches nearly every agency, finding
that the federal government is still spending taxpayer dollars to put animals
on treadmills and subsidize wine.
“Washington politicians are more
focused on their own political futures than the future of our country,” Coburn
writes in the introduction of the fifth-annual Wastebook. “And with
no one watching over the vast bureaucracy, the problem again isn’t just what Washington isn’t doing, but what it is doing.”
The
182-page report documents waste big and small, from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to
produce and distribute “chile-infused” wine, to $48.6
million spent on thousands of vehicles that sit idly in Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) parking lots.
The report included numerous examples
of waste at the National Science Foundation (NSF), including a $331,000
study that found spouses stab voodoo dolls more often when they’re
“hangry”—that is, hungry and angry at the same time.
“Over the course of twenty-one
consecutive evenings, 107 couples were given a chance to stick up to 51 pins
into a voodoo doll representing their spouse,” the report explained of the
government-funded study.
The results: “Hungry people are cranky
and aggressive,” the lead researcher said.
The NSF also financed synchronized
swimming for sea monkeys
at a cost of $50,000; a $41,000 study for how Penn State can boost
morale after the Jerry Sandusky scandal; and a $171,361 project that studied
the gambling habits of monkeys.
The government is also still
interested in the theater, doling out grants through the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA) to support a play about Bruce Lee ($70,000), and a “marijuana
themed musical” in Colorado ($15,000).
The NEA also awarded $10,000 to
produce a musical about a young zombie searching for true love, and
another $10,000 for a play about two lesbians who think they are Elvis Presley and Theodore
Roosevelt.
“The National Science Foundation (NSF)
taught
monkeys how to play video games and gamble,” Coburn wrote. “USDA got
into the business of butterfly farming. The Department of Interior even paid
people to watch grass to see how quickly it grows. The State Department
spent
money to dispel the perception abroad that Americans are fat and rude.”
“But the real shock and awe may have
been the $1 billion price tag the Pentagon paid to destroy $16 billion worth of
ammunition, enough to pay a full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army
privates,” he said.
After already putting monkeys, rats,
cows, and goats on treadmills for past research, the NSF decided to test
mountain lions skills at a cost of $856,000.
After eight months of training the
mountain lions were able to walk on treadmills, though the research concluded
that they “do not have the aerobic capacity for sustained high-energy
activity.”
Waste was also found in the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, including $1,552,145 to create a video game
that teaches parents how to feed their kids vegetables. Another $371,026
project investigates if mothers have a different emotional reaction to pictures
of their dogs over pictures of their children by monitoring their brains.
Wastebook also highlighted a Washington
Free Beacon story on an NIH study that is texting drunksto tell
them to stop drinking.
“Btw, don’t have 2 much 2 drink,”
offered Coburn as an example.
Other Free Beacon reports
cited in Wastebook included a $202,000 NSF study on why
Wikipedia is sexist, the Justice Department spending $544,338 to
enhance its company profile on LinkedIn, and$450,000 for state of the
art gym memberships for desk workers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE).
The report included some literal
examples of government waste, such as a $50,000 USDA grant to process, package,
and market “Poop Paks,” plant fertilizer made from Alpaca manure.
A housing authority in California also
received $27 million despite the deplorable living conditions of its units,
which were found to be full of bed bugs, “handfuls of half-dead mice,” “drug
dealers,” and “blue and green mold.”
“I just got tired of the poop falling
on me,” the report quoted a tenant of the Hacienda as saying.
Coburn attempted to submit an
amendment that would revoke funding for any housing authority that persisted in
maintaining uninhabitable conditions, but Senate Democrats blocked it.
Coburn did highlight some victories at
curbing waste, such as the “Bridge to Nowhere” never being built due to public
outrage, the shutdown of an unused Oklahoma airport that received $500,000 in
subsidies each year, and the closing of a taxpayer-funded global
warming musical.
“What
I have learned from these experiences is Washington will never change itself,”
Coburn said. “But even if the politicians won’t stop stupid spending, taxpayers
always have the last word.”
Coburn has unearthed $91 billion in
government waste since Wastebook began
in 2010. The future of the project will not be known until next year, according
to Keith Ashdown, chief investigator for Coburn on the Senate Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs committee.
“While Coburn hopes every member of
Congress will start making waste watching part of their job, it is hard work
and not very rewarding,” he told the Free Beacon. “He says answers
to how Wastebookwill continue and in what format will have to wait
to next year, but notes it doesn’t require a sitting member of Congress to
identify waste.”
“In
fact, sometimes they are ones least able to do so since they are responsible
for it to begin with,” Ashdown said.
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