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.
What does that have to do with fertilizers?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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