Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) shared his annual “Festivus” report, detailing how $900 billion American tax dollars were wasted.
The “Festivus” report is designed to “alert the American people to how their federal government uses their hard-earned money,” according to a press release.
“Some of the highlights include the National Institutes of Health spending a portion of a $2.7 million grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill and Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds,” the statement explains. “The Department of Defense ruined over $169 million worth of military equipment by leaving it outside, the United States Agency for International Development spent $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and the Small Business Administration gave ‘struggling’ music artists like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne over $200 million.”
“How is 2023 already coming to a close? What a year it’s been,” Paul’s report begins. “Twitter is now X, what we thought were UFOs were actually Chinese Spy Balloons, Barbie battled Oppenheimer at the box office, and a missing F-35 jet flew for over 60 miles without a pilot. It’s safe to say that some big changes have occurred since last year’s Festivus Report.”
Paul notes that the national debt is reaching $34 million.
“Who’s to blame for our crushing level of debt? Everybody. This year, members of both parties in Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling, which empowered the government to borrow an unlimited amount of money until 2024,” he writes. “As Congress spends to reward its favored industries and pet projects, the American taxpayers are forced to pay the price through record high inflation and crippling interest rates.”
“This year, I am highlighting a whopping ~$900,000,000,000 of waste, including an NIH grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds, $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and $200 million to ‘struggling artists’ like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne. No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more,” the report adds.
Explaining how Barbie dolls were used to take COVID-19 funds, the senator writes, “What was supposed to be an AI system to verify proof of identity, quickly exposed the stupidity of the program. The verification system did not catch the images of dolls uploaded by fraudsters. Somehow the Small Business Administration carelessly approved the applicants from Toyland and sent out improper COVID-19 PPP payments.
Paul’s report adds that the Department of Defense (DOD) spent more than $8,000 on a lobster tank.
The tank was purchased from a “restaurant equipment company in Springfield, Virginia.”
Some areas of wasteful spending that Paul describes include Homeland Security training for employees to be their “authentic and best selves,” studies involving cats on treadmills, research where monkeys were given meth, a “transgender monkey study,” and many others.
