“Your Tax Dollars At Work”
Some in Congress do seem to care about our taxes being wasted. This year, a number of US Senators have documented ways in which the US government wastes our tax revenues. Two of them are Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and James Lankford of Oklahoma.
Senators Flake and Lansford have each published lists showing how the US government wastes money out the wazoo. Each list documents approximately 100 real “winners” funded by the Federal government.
Some examples?
• Organizing craft festivals in Russia.
• Handing out “tailgating” packages before the Nebraska-Wisconsin football game.
• A different “DRC” – the DARPA Robotics Challenge – that absolutely cratered. (This quote from Senator Flake’s blurb about the event should raise a chuckle from TAH readers: “If the DRC hadn’t been so rife with slapstick, it would have put everyone to sleep.”)
• Funding the construction of a building at a cosmetology college.
• Producing and distributing bar coasters.
• DoD’s adventures with gas stations and empty buildings in Afghanistan.
These are just a few of the 100 “winners” listed by Senator Flake. Some are repeated in Senator Lankford’s list; but the overlap between the two lists doesn’t seem to be total.
Yeah, this is funny – in a “laughing to keep from crying” kinda way. It’s our freaking tax money being wasted.
Senator Flake documents around $133.6 BILLION in apparent waste. (It wasn’t as easy to extract costs from Senator Lankford’s list, so I passed on trying to do that.) That’s approaching the budget of the entire Department of Veterans Affairs.
As the late Senator Everett Dirksen reputedly said: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” And since Uncle Sam’s as broke as an E3 with 3 kids and a stay-at-home spouse a week after payday, well . . . every dollar counts.
Senator Flake’s list can be found here; Senator Lankford’s can be found here. If you have the time reading them is worth your while – for as long as you can stand to read either.
But maybe give them a pass if you’re having a bad day, or are having blood pressure issues. Punching a wall or computer screen kinda smarts, and raising your blood pressure too high can be bad news indeed.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Some in the Whorehouse on the Potomac say there’s not enough money for retirees to get a COLA raise but we suddenly need to take in hordes of muslims and hand them things like they do with illegal aliens and welfare flunkies while ignoring the needs of Vets that need help! When was the last time anyone tried to take a look at welfare fraud and abuse, or is that “racist”?
‘Whorehouse on the Potomac.’
I am SO stealing that! 🙂
BE MY GUEST, I also like “The Great Brothel on the Potomac” as well! 😀
NICE!
Which one – the one with the dome, or the one on Penn Ave? Or the numerous ones lining K Street?
There’s a reason PJ O’Rourke called the government “A Parliament of Whores”
Indeed. One of the best books on the US Federal government – and on government in general – that you’ll ever read. Highly recommended.
$100,000++ to teach people how to tell the truth? Any nun teaching at a Catholic school has a cheap and effective way to do that: it’s a 12-inch ruler and a thump to the back of your head.
$30,000 to avoid hurting a bug? What benefit does the bug bring?
$65,000++ to figure out where bugs go when the lights go out? They go to sleep, idiots! Where’s my $65K?
And that one about funding for phantom fuels? Hondo, I sent you some stuff in e-mail, including a Forbes article, that clearly shows: a) we don’t need it, and b) it is a failure.
And the troops, vets, and us old folks can’t get catch a break.
I just love stuff like this.
I hope these gentlemen keep it up.
Ex-PH2, I spent 8 years of my yute in a Catholic school.
You can still see the inch marks from the ruler on the back of my hand !!!!
“Any nun teaching at a Catholic school has a cheap and effective way to do that: it’s a 12-inch ruler and a thump to the back of your head.”
That is funny! Reminds me of the movie, The Blues Brothers…and my 9 year parochial school career. Ouch!
Ah, Sister Mary Discipline with the steel ruler.
RIP, George. You were one of a kind!
These articles should be infuriating to every American, but they get little airplay because there’s no sexy story behind them.
Waste is boring to our 24 hour news cycle, dead people are interesting….thus the disparity in coverage.
AND a lot of the people that find this story, and other related stories boring, don’t pay taxes but rather live off of our tax money.
I unfortunately know some of them personally.
During the ‘climate change’ hearings, Mark Steyn, in his brilliant speech before the committee, told about $700,00 from the NSF for a Broadway musical. And a bad one at that.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/mark-steyns-illuminating-and-entertaining-testimony-to-the-cruz-hearing-on-climate-today/
Because nothing says ‘Science’ like a musical, right?
Damn that was AWESOME, and I am just a cave man. I highly encourage everyone to read Steyn at the link above. Just fooking awesome. Thank you Common Sense for posting that link. Made my day!
Here is some of it, but unsure if it includes everything in the transcript.
Michael Mann, the subject of Steyn’s address, is a compulsive liar and has been so for quite a while. Several years ago, in another one of his effects to dismiss the Little Ice Age, he snarkily observed that rivers do not get growlers. This was based on his snide review of the painting ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’, in which an oarsman is pushing chunks of ice (growlers) away from the rowboat. According to Mann, this painting was a falsehood, because per his resistance to other opinions, rivers never get growlers. Rivers only get pancake ice, small flat sheets of ice with defined borders that make take any shape, including round pancakes of ice. I knew that this was wrong, and said so. I provided a link to the 2009 Red River flood in North Dakota, clearly showing growlers on that river. The Kankakee River and Des Plaines River, both in northeastern Illinois, also get growlers as well as ice dams. These have been documented with photographs. The Chicago River gets both pancake ice and growlers. The formation of pancake ice requires specific conditions, which he ignored. Mann is, and has for some been, a pathological liar and should have been dismissed when he started his bullying act. Unfortunately, some people were afraid of him. But to sue someone over nothing the way he did Steyns shows his ultimate weakness – money. Does that remind you of anyone else? I found this little gem to be a very pointed statement: ‘You, Senator Markey, were rebuked by the President of the Cato Institute for “an obvious attempt to chill research into and funding of public policy projects you don’t like… You abuse your authority when you attempt to intimidate people who don’t share your political beliefs.’ Yes, when science acquires the status of being a political entity instead of a discovery process, and people are punished for speaking their minds and/or disagreeing with someone’s opinions, then science degrades itself to becoming nothing more than medieval witch trials. I’m inspired by Mr. Steyns to stick my own oar into this cesspool that has… Read more »
Along the same lines the VA inspector general resigned for chronic public masturbation, once in an all glass conference room visible to a teachers conference.
At least (I hope) they are not being funneled into All-Points Logistics (Merritt Island, Florida and Huntsville, Alabama) based on the highly questionable Native American, false Disabled Veteran, erroneous Law Enforcement and Fake Navy SEAL claims by their CEO, The False Commander Phil Monkress.