2024 Festivus: Sen. Rand Paul Exposes Over $1 Trillion in Waste
Ice skating drag queens? Influencers? Border security for Paraguay? I have so many problems with the government.
One of my favorite days of the year! Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) issued his annual Festivus Report.
Our national debt is $36 trillion. We might add $2.1 trillion every year over the next decade.
Stop spending. Stop spending. Stop spending.
Here are a few of the worst:
- Censoring Non-Leftist Media: $330,000 from State Department
- IRS Test to Prepare Taxes: $15,000,000 from Democrats
- Influencers: $4,840,082 from the Department of State
- “Girl-Centered Climate Action” in Brazil: $3,000,000 from the Department of State
- Las Vegas Pickleball Complex: $12,000,000 from the Department of the Interior
- Ghost Buildings: $10,000,000 from the entire government
- Kids & Facebook Food Ads: $2,000,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- Electric Vehicles: $15,500,000 from Department of Energy
- Failed Trucking Company: $700,000,000 from Treasury Department
- Magical Projects: $7,026,689
- Paraguayan Border Security: $2,100,000 from the Department of State
- Fertilize in Pakistan, Vietnam, Colombia, and Brazil: $20,000,000 from the Agriculture Department
- Fauci Funded Feline COVID Experiments: $2,240,000 from The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Iraqi Sesame Street: $20,000,000
- U.S. Navy Failing Vessels: $90,000,000 from U.S. Navy
- Bearded Ladies Cabaret: $10,000 from National Endowment for the Arts
Censoring Non-Leftist Media
The State Department bankrolls the National Endowment for Democracy, a private foundation. Why?!
Well, that private foundation and the Global Engagement Center gave $330,000 in taxpayer money to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).
That British organization’s “disinformation index” is filled with non-leftist media outlets, making it hard for them to get advertisers and fairly compete in the market:
These lists were then handed off to Xandr, an advertising firm owned by Microsoft. Xandr and other companies took the bait and refused to place ads on websites that GDI slapped with a “risky” label, according to emails leaked to the Washington Examiner. So, taxpayers footed the bill for an attack on free speech.
Among the ten “riskiest” outlets identified by GDI are The New York Post, American Spectator, Newsmax, The American Conservative, The Blaze, One America News, The Daily Wire, Reason, RealClearPolitics, and The Federalist. Their crime? Not toeing the line of a particular political narrative.
Meanwhile, left-leaning outlets like The New York Times, HuffPost, NPR, and BuzzFeed, were conveniently labeled as “less risky.”
IRS Test to Take Over Tax Preparation
That stupid Inflation Reduction Act gave the IRS $15,000,000 to see if that evil agency could take over tax preparation.
Yes, who trusts the IRS to prepare, file, and audit your taxes?!? I’d trust Satan more. Oh, wait. Same thing. NEVER MIND:
According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, only 12% of taxpayers were eligible to use the Direct File Pilot program, which could cost up to $249 million a year. Burning $15 million to study a system that already exists in the private sector and is free to use? Sounds like classic government waste.
But wait, there’s more! Not only does Direct File create an unholy amalgamation of IRS tax authority, it’s also unconstitutional! The IRA only allowed for a study, but the IRS jumped the gun, developing the system without Congressional approval.
Empty Government Buildings
Why do we pay $10,000,000 to operate mostly empty government buildings?
That includes $237,960 for solar-powered picnic tables:
Most federal offices are ghost towns, with 17 out of 24 agencies using only 25% or less of their space in 2023. Even the busiest offices barely reach 50% capacity. This problem predates the pandemic, but COVID-19’s telework boom made it worse. These buildings were underused even before we all learned how to unmute ourselves on Zoom.
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In addition to the whopping $2 billion annual maintenance cost, the federal government is spending $5 billion on leases. This isn’t a new issue either. In a 2022 waste report, I noted the government spent $1.7 billion on 77,000 empty, unused properties.
Electric Vehicles
Do not touch my gas vehicle. I love my Toyota 4Runner.
Leslie has always done a great job keeping us updated on the Energy Department’s crusade to force us to drive electric vehicles:
- Ford Reports Massive Loss on Every Electric Vehicle It Sold
- Ford Motor Co. Profits Take Hit Due to EV Costs
- After Trump Win, Toyota Executive Criticizes “De Facto” U.S. EV Mandate
- Ford Nixes All-Electric SUV plan, Saying Customers are Demanding Hybrids
- Hertz Selling 20,000 Electric Vehicles for Gas-Powered Cars
Despite the problems with all the vehicles and losses by the auto companies, the Biden administration gave the automakers $12,000,000 to make more electric vehicles.
The department has $3,500,000 to give “to expand domestic manufacturing of batteries for EVs and the U.S. grid.” But, um, most materials to make the batteries come from overseas!
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Comments
I agree with a vast majority of the list but fertilizers aren’t waste the loss of rainforest is real and is something that can only be avoided if farmers have the option of continuing to profitably use the land they have instead of cutting down rainforest.
In Pakistan? I expect they’re fertilizing poppy crops in Pakistan.
I agree on not Pakistan, but non-human primates are rapidly going extinct.
So why should American taxpayers pay for it?
If survival of primates in other countries is important to you, raise the money to help them privately. But with our national debt about to implode our economy (which will be a lot worse for millions of *people*, the USG simply cannot afford to fund every “feel good” program in the world.
Americans wish for the preservation of species rapidly going extinct, this is something governments of the United States have routinely demanded both right and left wing governments towards Brazil, and like it or not when the people and government are both making demands are you an imperialist or is something positive offered with it?
Demand they do not cause extinction by cutting down rainforest give them the fertilizers they need to avoid poverty and starvation without destroying the rainforest.
What does that have to do with fertilizers?
The reason the fertilizers are needed is because the land quality in Brazil is low and if they get desperate Brazilians will cut down sections of the rainforest to get new land.
The United States has been demanding Brazil not destroy the rainforest and cause the extinctions that come with it for decades.
Price for that is helping Brazilian farmers avoid the exhaustion of their lands which means fertilizers.
A vast majority of Americans are pro-rainforest and anti-extinction the U.S. Government demanding the rainforest be preserved is a reaction to that. You can’t make demands like stop chopping down the rainforest for new lands and not help them with the land they have.
Is there some reason why these four countries can’t pay for their own fertilizer?
In Brazil’s case being poor could have something to do with it.
Either the farmers are able to make use of land they have or they will cut down forest to support themselves.
AYFKM? Brazil’s economy is the 10th largest in the world. The Brazilian government makes it far more economically easier for farmers to clear cut in the Amazon rather than actually farm their existing land, but to claim that Brazil can’t afford to buy their own fertilizer is specious at best.
You could tell the U.S. population to stop favoring the rainforest and the U.S. government to stop demanding it not be chopped down then.
The right place for criticism would be policy not the price of that policy.
America has under both Democrats and Republicans made demands of Brazil that it not chop down rainforest.
Providing fertilizers is the price for that.
“Providing fertilizers is the price for that.”
Oh bullshit. The American taxpayers don’t owe Brazilian farmers jack shit.
You never get tired of spending other people’s money, do you.
It is BS that if you demand people avoid chopping down the rainforest you provide them the base needed resources to be able to do that without causing their people to be impoverished????
Really?????
You do realize other nations are watching what the United States does right? You also realize that the American image being over deliberately causing poverty is horrible for diplomacy yes?
If you favor the bipartisan decision to demand Brazil preserve the rainforest you also favor spending money to help the poor farmers of Brazil so they don’t have to chop down the forest.
You can’t have one without the other it is that simple.
If you don’t like the price tag change the policy. Because you did not say
“I do not agree with how most Americans feel about the deforestation/mass extinction issue, I do not think there is anything special about the Brazilian rainforest and I do not see any reason the United States Government should be involved in saving it”
I get a feeling you want to have conservation of the rainforest but you just feel embittered by the idea that it means paying a miniscule portion of the budget to do it.
If you don’t like the price change the policy, nowhere here did you express disapproval of the policy only that you do not like paying for it.
What part of “Oh bullshit. The American taxpayers don’t owe Brazilian farmers jack shit. You never get tired of spending other people’s money, do you” do you not understand?
The Brazilians are responsible for the rain forest. The rain forest doesn’t belong to us. We are under no obligation to support Brazilian farmers.
Take your silly virtue-signaling somewhere else, and start spending your own money rather than mine.
Tell it the European Gov’ts shutting down fertilizer production via ‘climate change’ arguments about use of fertilizer and Nat Gas. Then there’s the sanctions on Russian produced fertilizer by EU and Belarusian Fertilizer by EU and US. China curbed exports of their fertilizer to preserve it for domestic use. The supply of fertilizer decreased raising the price of remaining fertilizer production available.
I agree with you about Europe.
In America however when we make demands with a stick we also offer a carrot.
The simple solution is to stop making these sorts of demands of other Nations. If the USA is gonna worry about habitat being destroyed then start looking around the USA at the vast areas used for solar farms, wind farms and for high power transmission lines to move the power from point a to b.
Danny thinks we should be forced to subsidize other countries’ bad policies and inabilities to manage their own resources.
Danny obviously has no issues spending other peoples’ money.
Danny’s probably a socialist.
However you do agree that until we stop making those demands with the stick we need to maintain the carrot yes?
My issue with including that item is we are making that demand, we had that demand under the Trump, Obama and Bush administration to (so for almost every day this century) and the inclusion seems to be a “lets keep the policy just remove the carrot”.
The rest of the world is watching all American foreign policy moves and a policy of stick only (especially one that overtly causes poverty) is not going to be well received.
I could just be missing it but I have never seen Rand Paul or any other prominent Republican with the exception of John Stossel denounce the policy of making the demands in question.
Lets change the policy is a very different conversation to “lets keep the policy but remove the carrot”.
Danny
If many/most US Citizens are truly in favor of sending funds to the Govt of Brazil to give to farmers in Brazil as subsidies to purchase fertilizer in the hope that additional rain forest acreage won’t be turned into crop land…. no one is stopping them. They can all cut a check. Heck, they could set up a go fund me.
The problem is the Gov’t funding. The gov’t collects the $ and ultimately will use force to compel the collection and confiscate funds from those who object to boondoggle spending. Let individual people send their own money and we will see exactly the depth and breadth of the support for each boondoggle spending idea.
FWIW the stick works very well. The carrot can be a choice not to impose an economic embargo or an actual blockade. It could be continued good relations with the USA. No Nation has a ‘right’ to unfettered trade with or travel to the USA. History is replete with examples of powerful Nations imposing their will upon less powerful Nations.
IMO far better to only become involved in the practices of other Nations when it meets the threshold of ‘vital US strategic interest’. The very clear definition for that is an affirmative answer to the question; ‘Is the US Gov’t and it’s Citizens prepared to go to war, put boots on the ground over X issue?’ If not then it isn’t a vital strategic interest and we should leave the internal policy of whatever other Sovereign Nation to that Nation and it’s Citizens.
CommoChief
The economic relationship with Brazil is very much mutually beneficial to both countries.
I agree with you on just change the policy.
But on the topic of what to do while the policy of making the demands continues Brazil is a major export market for American goods and mutual research into agriculture should not be underestimated either.
In addition to being horrible optics (sanctioning a much weaker nation for not imposing a poverty creating policy) sanctions on Brazil would cost American jobs.
I fully agree with the initial “then just change the policy” you stated.
Where I think we differ is I think making poverty imposing demands backed by sanctions while not offering something in return for agreeing to those demands should be used with great caution and avoided when there are other options (i.e. policy change which was the initial instinct you stated).
Brazil is a leading emerging markets economy. It boasts the world’s third-largest manufacturer of passenger jets (Embraer), plus, a large service sector and great mineral wealth. It is perhaps “poor” relative to the major industrialized market economies, but, not relative to most emerging markets economies.
I’m not sure what your skit is, but you spouting BS as someone else pointed out. There are many ways for farmers to take care of their land and buying fertilizer is one part of it. So is crop rotation, etc. but cutting a forest down so they have more farmland is not one way. The forests aren’t being cut down by the US, nor are they being cut down by local farmers. They’re being cut down by huge logging companies. It’s pure corporate greed. Supplying fertilizer to Brazilian farmers isn’t going to stop that, but perhaps you could give them all the BS you’re spouting. That will certainly help the land.
Around the world, agriculture accounts for about 27% of all forest loss, and Amazonia is no exception.52 Oftentimes, farmers will use slash-and-burn techniques to clear land for growing or harvesting commodities like soy, palm oil, gold, sugarcane, and beef, which depletes the forest cover and increases the risk of fire. In 2003, one of the worst years for deforestation in the Amazon, it was discovered that more than 20% of the forest in Mato Grosso (a Brazilian state) was converted to cropland.53 Much of this specific cause is powered by global markets and economic conditions.54 Generally, specific deforestation rates tend to rise and fall in concert with the price of soybeans, beef, timber, and other crops in the region.55
https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/deforestation-in-the-amazon-rainforest
https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/cop26-agricultural-expansion-drives-almost-90-percent-of-global-deforestation/en
Rome – Agricultural expansion drives almost 90 percent of global deforestation – an impact much greater than previously thought, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said when releasing the first findings of its new Global Remote Sensing Survey today.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021000595
https://www.green.earth/blog/deforestation-in-the-amazon-rainforest-causes-effects-solutions
“Agriculture: Cattle ranches and soybean production are the largest drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. Soybeans are in high demand globally, and the Amazon is a prime location for growing this crop due to its fertile soil. Unfortunately, clearing forests to create new agricultural land is often the easiest and cheapest solution for farmers. Brazil is one of the world’s largest beef exporters, and to raise their cattle, ranchers need huge tracts of land.”
The people who have actually put their time and effort into studying deforestation do not agree with you that it is logging companies and frankly the idea that there was some time when logging was not corporate greed or that there was a point corporate greed was less than it is today is just bizarre.
Do you have any source at all for any claim you made?
I just put some sources out and they all seem to show it is agriculture that causes demand for more land resulting in forest being cut down.
A very marginal piece of the budget going to sweeten American demands that are backed by the stick of economic sanctions……
The United States has always used carrots alongside the stick.
All I got for my ten grand was a cabaret of bearded women?
I feel so depressed.
Iraqi Sesame Street. I’ll bet that is a hoot!
One! suicide vest! Two! suicide vest! Ah! Ah! Ah!
“They blow up so quick these days…”
The point is that 10% of all the money flows are skimmed in the form of corruption. What the 90% is spent on isn’t a consideration in designing programs.
My basic cuts to the Federal Spending are: 1) UN to $1 per year, 2) No money to any foreign government or group, 3) No money to any NGO, 4) cut all politicians and staff 10%, 5) eliminate movement of any government person to similar private sector job for 7 years.
I am the count…I love to count virgins!
A trillion is nothing. There is the TWO TRILLION DOLLARS in “emergency” COVID spending from 2020 that has never come off the books. That is TWO TRILLION DOLLARS of completely unnecessary expenditures, aside from all the normal federal spending. That TWO TRILLION DOLLARS should come right out with no problem. Now, on top of that, there is easily a trillion in insane waste, graft, and fraud. Easily.
But that extra TWO TRILLION DOLLARS in emergency spending from 2020 should be a no-brainer to just stop. And that would kill the deficit in a year. Strange, huh …
Use the last Clinton budget. Adjust for inflation. There’s the top line budget #. Then use common sense like Sen Paul’s report to ID cuts. Dust off the Simpson Bowles plan and update it a bit then implement it. Use DOGE to ID things the Federal Gov’t should not be doing, to trim regulatory burden and slash the Federal workforce.
I would point out the reality of cuts to Federal spending and Federal regulations and Federal programs. Namely all of them have some level of public support or interest group support or they wouldn’t have gotten implemented. Second some (not all) of the things we would eliminate from the Federal Gov’t authority/funding would be better done by the State/Local gov’t. State and local Gov’t gonna have to raise their taxes if they choose to replace them when the Federal Gov’t stops funding and doing these things.
Make no mistake about that $700,000,000 loan for Yellow Freight to keep them afloat. The Teamsters drove Yellow out of business.
Zero-based budgeting with no money until the independant audits prove no hank-panky. Public hearings, too. REAL BUDGETS NOT CR’s.