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2022-12-28 Home Front: Politix

Rand Paul's Annual ‘Festivus' Report: $482,276,543,907 in Government Waste

[Breitbart] Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Friday continued the annual tradition of celebrating “Festivus,” airing out his many grievances as it relates to government waste.

Paul’s 2022 Festivus report highlights $482,276,543,907 in government waste and includes $2.3 million used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for an experiment involving injecting puppies with cocaine, $202,000 used by the Department of Defense (DOD) on Starbucks espresso machines, and $3 million for the construction of a Gandhi museum.

“This will be the 10th year in a row that I’ve celebrated #Festivus with you. By celebrated I mean have a little fun at the expense of Washington. If we don’t laugh we might cry,” Paul wrote before sharing some of the highlights of the report to his social media page and invoking the infamous Seinfeld quote from Frank Costanza, “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people!”

“I would air my grievance at Fauci again but I am trying to be festive — and also I’m trying to get home for Christmas. If I listed all of the things Fauci was wrong on…wow that guy is wrong a LOT,” Paul began:

According to Paul, the DOD wasted millions this year, including $28 million on “camouflage” uniforms that did not work.

Per the Festivus report:

A Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report revealed that the Department of Defense (DOD) spent roughly $28 million on forest-patterned, “camouflage” uniforms to use in the deserts of Afghanistan. It was later found that the camouflage uniforms were “not based on an evaluation of its appropriateness for the Afghan environment.”

The DOD also spent $192,952 on what the report describes as “top-of-the-line” Starbucks espresso machines:

The NIH also wasted a significant amount of money. That includes $2.1 million on encouraging Ethiopians to wear shoes, $2.3 million injecting beagle puppies with cocaine, $1.1 million on “training mice to binge drink alcohol,” over $519,000 using mice to study racial aggression, and $187,500 on “verifying that kids love their pets.”

According to the report, the pet grant went to Kent State University, which used the funds to apparently “verify that the relationship between pets and children is beneficial to mental health.”

Other highlights directly from the report include:

Maintaining 77,000 empty Federal buildings (GSA)………………..………….$1,700,000,000
Helping illegal immigrants avoid deportation (DHS)……………………….…. $168,000,000
Overpaying government contractors for a terminated contract (GSA)…………..$69,000,000
Using COVID relief funds to construct an 11,000 square foot spa……….……. $140,000,000
Watching hamsters fight on steroids (NIH)………………………..………….…..$3,000,000
Studying the romance between parrots (NSF)……………..………………………….…$689,222
A radio campaign telling drivers to stop at railroad crossings (DOT)………………..$200,000

The full report can be accessed at the link.

Posted by Skidmark 2022-12-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [15 views ] Top
File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats

#1 Exclusive: Watchdog Group Finds over $1 Billion in Possible Telework-Related Government Waste, Pushes for More Oversight

Posted by Skidmark 2022-12-28 07:56|| 2022-12-28 07:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Government Waste: Nearly $690K in Taxpayers’ Money Spent to Study Romance Between Parrots

Posted by Skidmark 2022-12-28 07:59|| 2022-12-28 07:59|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm surprised it is that little

Posted by DarthVader 2022-12-28 11:24|| 2022-12-28 11:24|| Front Page Top

#4 Most waste takes longer to identify. It is like a jobs report; they outright lie initially and the truth dribbles out over time. If Rand was looking back over a 5 year window the total would be higher. His report also has a bias towards funny waste. Steroid hamsters get a mention, but I would argue that nearly all money allocated towards education is waste based on achieved results. There is also redundant waste. Cities and states are libel to be sued by any number of civil rights divisions of different arms of the imperial government, for instance. There is also an NGO waste of fungibility where the government shovels money at NGOs or foreign governments with no audit or other accountability function. We give money to PP for supposed good deeds which frees up their other funds to be used against the wishes of more than half of the tax payers. There are whole offices of people processing paperwork and checks that funnel Mitch approved morality payments headed for Kiev. Allen Iverson didn’t need an office to make it rain $100k in a strip club. Why are we wasting money on bureaucracy? We can make Hunter Biden the Ukraine Czar and achieve the same result at the same level of corruption: 100%.
Finally, there is the Defense budget, a perceived good, that is really setting up different FIFO lanes of armaments into a war zone where a portion of it is killing Russians, a portion is killing different Slavic civilians and ruining their stuff and a portion is going who knows where. The media tells us it is good to do while they are shaming us for doing the same thing in Iraq where at least the arms weren’t being resold for export.

Posted by Super Hose 2022-12-28 11:53|| 2022-12-28 11:53|| Front Page Top

#5 $28 million on forest-patterned, “camouflage” uniforms to use in the deserts of Afghanistan

Maybe it was to gain some element of surprise?

Posted by Dron66046 2022-12-28 12:22|| 2022-12-28 12:22|| Front Page Top

#6 NIH also wasted a significant amount of money. That includes $2.1 million on encouraging Ethiopians to wear shoes, $2.3 million injecting beagle puppies with cocaine, $1.1 million on “training mice to binge drink alcohol,” over $519,000 using mice to study racial aggression, and $187,500 on “verifying that kids love their pets.”

I'd appreciate my taxes used to train beagles to wear shoes and making Ethiopians binge drink alcohol. I wouldn't mind injecting Starbucks machines with cocaine either for a million or two, provided the cocaine came from confiscated stashes. And build a museum to mice, you bastards. For all you've put 'em through! WTF did Gandhi ever do?

Posted by Dron66046 2022-12-28 12:31|| 2022-12-28 12:31|| Front Page Top

#7 Take it easy, Dron. It's nothing personal, just business, DC style.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-12-28 13:09|| 2022-12-28 13:09|| Front Page Top

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